


I have seen flowers come in stony places

by Bridget, Trojie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Dubious Consent, Magic, Mind Games, Mpreg, Multi, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-28
Updated: 2011-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-19 20:27:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bridget/pseuds/Bridget, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Harry gets pregnant, of course he goes to Hermione and Ron for help. But the circumstances surrounding his little predicament start to cast doubt on things they all thought were settled long ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I have seen flowers come in stony places

**Author's Note:**

> Written by Trojie with prodding and tinkering by Bridget, whom it was originally supposed to be a gift for. Beta-read by Ineptshieldmaid.
> 
> Think of this as a sort of alternative to JKR's epilogue - one where the war actually affected everyone (and also, uh, one where male pregnancy is possible? IDEK).  
> Written because Bridget wanted Hermione and Viktor, and because Trojie is convinced there must be a way to write mpreg properly, without committing all sorts of crimes against literature. Title from John Masefield's 'An Epilogue'.
> 
> It probably says a lot about this fic that the working title was 'BECAUSE I CAN, DAMMIT'.

**Prologue: Five Minutes Later**

The last time Harry Potter felt rested, he was dead. Tiredness starts again at the cleanup.

The castle is a mess, a stinking, broken mess, and as Harry walks down crumbled corridors at the head of the remains of a jostling, exhilarated army, he can't get the memory of the little house in Godric's Hollow out of his head, overlaying what he's seeing. All houses fall down, it seems. It's yet another punch to the gut, but Harry's numb. None of his injuries register yet.

He _was_ dead, and now he has no option but to keep going. So they clean up, and Harry keeps his mind on the job and his eyes on Ginny when his concentration starts to slip.

As strategies go, it works fairly well for a couple of years.

***

 **Five Years Later**

 **  
_August_   
**

They meet in the Leaky Cauldron, in a little private parlour. Tom behind the bar shows Hermione the way, to the old wooden door tucked around a corner, opening it for her and ushering her in with a little bow. It closes with a quiet _snick_ behind her.

Harry is huddled in an armchair by the fire, his dark cloak wrapped tight around him. She points her wand at the door and mutters a few incantations - because he’s still a celebrity, after all, and someone has to care about his privacy, even if he will insist on top secret meetings in _pubs_ , of all places - and takes the seat opposite him, staring intently at his face.

He doesn’t bother with a greeting, just swallows nervously a couple of times, before launching into something that's probably meant to be an explanation of why she got an owl this morning, fluffed up and indignant at five am, asking her to meet him. As explanations go, it's lengthy, but a bit lacking in concrete information.

'Harry, calm down,' Hermione says, because the flood of words resolutely refuses to cohere into something approaching sense. 'You're what?'

'I’m ... don't laugh, okay? Promise?' He gives her what's probably supposed to be an earnest and beseeching stare. His eyes glint in the firelight.

'Why would I laugh? You're obviously upset, Harry. Just tell me, slowly, what the matter is.'

Harry fidgets in his chair, picking at his robe despite its lack of loose threads these days, and refuses to meet her eye. Then he takes a deep breath, not looking at her, and mumbles something unintelligible at high speed.

'By slow, I meant "at speeds humans can understand",' Hermione points out. 'Come on, one more time.'

'I'm _pregnant_ ,' Harry spits out, blushing the deep garnet red of dragon's blood, and takes another deep breath. His hands, she notices, are now clutching his robe tightly. 'I don't want to share the details, all right, just ... what do I do?' he asks, in the smallest voice she's ever heard him use.

'Pregnant.' Hermione leans forward in the threadbare armchair, examining his face for a hint of a joke. If Ron's put him up to this, she'll hex them both into next _year_.

'Yes.'

'Harry, you _do_ know that only women can-'

'Yeah, I do, but apparently that's not actually _true_ , is it, because I've got a bloody bun in the oven!' He's looking at her now, flushed and angry and embarrassed and maybe, she thinks, just maybe he isn't joking.

'Language,' she says, for want of anything more sensible, and fiddles with her wand. 'Are you sure it's not just-'

'Gas? Yes, sure. Also sure it's not an ulcer, a tumour, a mysterious glandular disorder or a magical parasite. Or, y'know, that ... thing ... from that Muggle film in space with the woman and the cat,' Harry reels off. 'It's growing, it moves-'

'Have you been to see a-'

'A Healer? Yes, and thank Merlin for confidentiality and all that. She said it was "a most unusual case" and wittered on about magical potential and am I any good at internal transfiguration and self-charming and everything.'

Now that Hermione looks at him, he does appear to be somewhat larger than usual. Around the gut, at least. His face is gaunter than it should be, and he looks like he hasn't been sleeping properly. 'Harry, how far along are you?'

He makes a face. 'The Healer thought about six months? I didn't notice, at first, and then I thought it was stomach trouble, and it would go away, but it _didn't_ , and ...' He shrugs, looking defeated. 'So I went to St. Mungo's.'

They sit for a moment in silence. It's a lot to take in, to use the cliché. A lot of rather pressing questions leap to the fore, one - _who's the -?_ \- in particular. Hermione knows he's been angry and lonely since Ginny left, but Harry's never seemed the type to have a fling. Not that she blames Ginny, of course not. Because Merlin knows, she understands. There was so much pressure on her, and so much scrutiny. Harry's never been an easy man to get along with, not even with no Dark Lord to occupy him, when he'd thought he could just be a normal bloke at last. They'd just left school, her mother so badly wanted grandchildren ... Ginny had wanted love, and adventure, and her career. Being the wife of the Boy Who Lived? Who'd want that?

Someone clearly had. Or rather, someone had wanted Harry, enough to ignore the rest of it.

'Who's the-' Hermione starts to ask before she can stop herself.

'The father?' Harry asks sardonically. He laughs, and slumps back in his chair, the firelight flickering strangely in his eyes. 'It doesn't matter.'

But it does matter, she thinks later on, when she's lying in bed, unable to sleep, trying to make sense of it all. Harry's spent most of his life searching for a family, for _parents_. It's become a fundamental part of who he is. He knows the importance of family, because he's never been able to take it for granted. There's no way he'd be able to put his own child through anything like that. No way he could give it such a hole to spend its life desperately trying to fill.

***

Chucking-out time at the Leaky Cauldron is precisely midnight. Ron knows this intimately. If they haven't finished their pints, Tom will let him and Neville take them to drink on the walk home. They always bring the glasses back. They're good customers. They only live down the road anyway, in the flat above Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. George kept the business after Fred … but wouldn't live there any more - just offered the place to Ron and whoever of his friends wanted it, and quietly took himself back to Ottery St Catchpole to live with their parents and commute every morning with Dad.

At first Seamus and Dean piled in there with Ron and Neville as well - two to a room, like dorms - and they hunted jobs together and cooked pancakes inexpertly on Sundays when they were all hungover and moaned about not having house-elves goodnaturedly amongst themselves, but it was too much like school, and it couldn't last. Four boys mooching around with their socks not matching and Chudley Cannons posters on shared walls works fine. Four men can't live like that and keep both their sanity and their dignity.

Anyway, Seamus and Dean ... Not that Ron minded, of course. Merlin knows, he gets it. But there was a period of time there where they did more than just sleep in their bedroom, and everyone was always very polite about Silencing charms, but it couldn't last like _that_ either. They got jobs out in Hereford in the end, with a branch of the Ministry working on illegal pig-charming (which they still hadn't managed to stamp out despite being at the job since 1612, but that's beside the point), and a cottage, and sent cards every Christmas, and still referred to each other as flatmates.

Ron's fine with it, if they're happy. All he ever wants these days is a quiet life, and for his mates to be happy.

So he and Neville spread out into separate rooms, with separate Quidditch posters and their own chests of drawers full of odd socks, and Neville announced one morning he was going for Healing, and Ron had his interview with Dawlish at the Aurors' Office, and suddenly they were responsible adults.

Suddenly, they're regulars at the Cauldron with their own table, and 'the usual', and last orders imprinted in their body-clocks. And Ron loops an arm around Neville's shoulders and they wend their way down the alley, not as drunk as they want to be.

They still make pancakes on Sunday mornings. They're better at them now, after five years' practice, but they still make pancakes.

***

Hermione writes a lot of letters, these days. In fact, she has two owls just to keep up with them all. It's a network she relies on; it's comforting to know that everyone is only the scrawl of ink on parchment away. Comforting, too, to have the big oak desk in the study she’s made for herself in the magically enlarged understairs cupboard, with neat piles of parchment stacked next to a variety of quills. Books line the walls, and a rag rug made by her grandmother covers the floor. It's her space, and even Ron wouldn't dare to be in there without express permission.

One of her most regular correspondents is an old friend.

She doesn't tell Ron about these letters, but then again, she doesn't tell Ron about any of her other letters either. It's just research. He wouldn't care very much anyway.

She's got a lot of quills - for different colours of ink, for different recipients. There's a vulture feather quill she reserves specifically for communicating with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. There's even a Muggle fountain pen, though her parents prefer phone calls to letters. For this one, she picks the eagle feather.

 _Dear Viktor,_

 _I hate to ask, but I need a favour. I'm doing some research into Healers' procedures dealing with some of the nastier Dark spells, specifically internal-organ Transfiguration, and I've hit a bit of a wall with the libraries here. I wondered if you could do a bit of hunting for me - I'm interested in the extreme limits of Transfiguring internal tissue and organ systems and any instances of natural or accidental internal Transfiguration and Charms (even rumours or folktales)._

 _Again, I'm so sorry to have to ask for your help again, you must be absolutely sick of me by now!_

 _Give my love to your mother and to Nadejda - I'm so sorry I couldn't visit this summer. What are you working on at the moment? I heard through the grapevine that the Metamorphmagus stuff is picking up again and that you're involved - do you really think that genealogical records will help work out the heredity of the trait? It's times like these I wish that magic responded to Muggle science - genetic techniques could help us so much with questions like these._

 _Anyway, I should finish now and get some work done!_

 _Yours_

 _Hermione._

It never takes long to get a reply:

 _My dearest Hermione,_

 _An interesting question! There is very little on such a subject in our library here, I think in any library really, but what I can find out is, there are stories of ancient wizards changing their hearts for those of bears or wolves to make themselves and their people brave (although I do not think these will be true), and that some Pureblood families with Metamorphmagus powers could make more large changes to themselves than Metamorphmagi can today. It seems to look like it is the person who makes this change in themselves, not doing it to other people. Perhaps this is a thing to do with instinct and knowledge of the body, or the spontaneous magic of children, that normally the adult will control, coming out from the subconscious?_

 _Mostly I would not believe these stories but the common parts suggest maybe there is some truth. I will keep looking for you. Fortunately, you are right, and our work on Metamorphmagi and other magical traits is to be funded again - this gives me good reasons to be looking in the library for these little questions of yours!_

 _I think that the old family trees will be of some help to us, yes. At least they will give to us a starting point for our search. We hope to establish the strength of the character in bloodlines and to trace the decline of it. As you know only very few families in Britain have this ability, but there are more elsewhere. It is curious that Metamorphmagi do not always pass down this ability, but we hope to find why not. Anyway, all is very early stages now - I will tell you more when I know it!_

 _I hope this letter finds you well. Mother and Nadejda send their love, as do I. Nadejda has moved in with me now as she has stopped seeing her boyfriend - be glad that you do not have sisters! But it is nice to have her company._

 _Yours_

 _Viktor Krum._

***

Ron comes over for the evening, and he stays the night, and Hermione wants desperately to tell him about Harry, and to start brainstorming and planning with him, but she promised Harry she wouldn't tell anyone, and 'anyone' includes Ron. He’d been quite definite about that.

She misses the days when they had no secrets from each other. Since his divorce Harry has folded in on himself, and she is self-aware enough to know she keeps secrets from Ron, mostly the kind of thing that he doesn't need to know, for his own good – things he'd be upset to hear about, or would misunderstand – and given that, it's fairly safe to bet that he keeps things from her. Hopefully only the small things. The biggest thing, really, that she keeps from him is her correspondence with Viktor, and that's only a big thing because of his own silly prejudices – she doesn't think it's that important, really. She just ... doesn't mention it, that’s all, so that she doesn't have to see the face Ron pulls at the mention of Viktor's name. And anyway, it's not as if they're talking about anything other than work when they owl each other.

She curls up next to Ron on the couch, watching a film on the Muggle television, and tangles her fingers with his. He squeezes gently, and turns his head briefly to smile at her, his attention on the screen. When the film finishes, she makes cocoa, and he comes up behind her in the kitchen and cuddles her, his arms warm around her waist, as she pours the milk in and stirs.

In bed she reads, and he leans up against her, and after a while his hands start wandering, and she eventually puts the book down and wriggles over in his arms to kiss him.

He has two fingers inside her and his mouth against her throat, kissing gently, when her mind starts to wander back to research, and wondering what she's going to say in reply to Viktor's letter; the Metamorphmagi thing _might_ throw up a lead, after all, Harry's father's family was pureblood, and it's not inconceivable that there's a Metamorphmagus link in there somewhere, something to allow Harry the plasticity to get pregnant in the first place.

Ron mouths at her jawline and says, 'You're thinking again,' fondly.

'I can't turn that off,' she says, mock-irritably, and turns her attention back to the task at hand, the feel of him as he pushes in, gently and precisely, and it feels _good_ , so she lets him know with her hands and her mouth and her noises, but she still can't stop thinking.

How to get Viktor's mind onto the _reproductive_ aspect of the problem without actually telling him is what runs through her mind when she comes.

 

***

 **  
_September_   
**

This time, Hermione visits Harry at home. He hasn't talked to her in a month, and he's not answering her owls. Ron tells her he turns up at work, talks as little as possible, and leaves as soon as he can. And gossip all over the Ministry confirms it - Harry Potter is losing his touch, Harry Potter is depressed, it's the stress, his divorce, he's gaining weight ...

In the end she Floos to his house.

She calls it his house, but really it's a little flat above a Muggle butcher's in the East End - far enough that he can fly to work every day - and she's always wondered why he likes it there. It's dark, and badly in need of new paint, and she knows he could afford something better. She knows he could disable the Floo too, if he really doesn't want visitors, and wonders briefly why he hasn't.

She's here because she's worried about him, that's all. So she tries to tell him that he doesn't have to drive himself like this, it's not good for him. That there's such a thing as sick leave, or ... or maternity leave -

'I don't want _maternity leave_! I don't want special treatment, or help lifting things, or- or footrubs! I _don't_ want to have to explain this to Dawlish-' He's pacing up and down the badly carpeted living room, and he looks as though he's ready to hex somebody, and really, she shouldn't be so surprised that it took so little time for the argument to start.

'Harry, you're going to have to do _something_ , you can't keep on like this. For a start, people are starting to notice the-' Hermione waves her hand vaguely at his midriff.

Harry gazes down at his distended belly with barely-concealed irritation, and sits down suddenly. The cut of his robe hides his stomach well when he's sitting. He must have paid the tailor highly. 'If I could just find a Healer prepared to tell a little bloody white lie-'

'-calling pregnancy a severe case of Grumbling Gastritis is a bit more than a little white lie-' Hermione murmurs, but he's not listening.

'-then this wouldn't be nearly such an issue. I can't wander in and start announcing the pitter-patter of tiny feet and handing out invitations to my baby shower. People would ask questions.' Harry sighs, and winces, shifting on his chair to try and ease the back-pain that Hermione's fairly sure he's having. 'I just want to get the damn thing out, give it to someone, and forget this whole thing ever happened,' he says, a little bitterly.

'You're not going to keep it?' Hermione asks, a little more incredulously than she meant to. He’s always been full of surprises, but this is something else. Harry gives her the patented exasperated look he's learnt off Ron.

'Andromeda will barely trust me alone for half an hour with my own five year old godson,' he points out. 'Don't try and tell me that anyone in their right mind would leave me in charge of a newborn baby.'

'Caring for offspring is instinctive,' Hermione argues. 'New mothers-'

It's the wrong tack again. 'But I'm not a _mother_ , Hermione!'

'I don't understand why you're so quick to drop the responsibility for your child!' Hermione snaps back, against her better judgement. She shouldn't be needling him at a time like this, but _really_.

He laughs angrily. ' _Drop_ the responsibility? Merlin's beard, could you have got it any more the wrong way round? Can't you see? I can't mess up a child's life like that, growing up with one Auror parent who'd forget about ... about bathtimes and regular meals and whatever else it is parents are supposed to remember. It's not like I had good role models.' He scrubs at his eyes behind his glasses for a second, and sighs. 'Somewhere out there is someone perfectly nice who wants to be a parent. I don't. I just - I want my life back.'

He doesn't say it sadly, or self-pityingly. Tears don't glisten in his eyes, like they would if this were a book. He says it like he says everything - as if he's determined to make it happen.

Hermione reaches across to try and take his hand. He bats her away, a smile twisting his lips but not his eyes. His glasses are smudged, she notices.

'Come and stay with me,' she says. 'I live a lot closer to St Mungo's than you do, and a lot closer to the Ministry - you wouldn't have to fly as far to get to work.' She nearly adds 'in your condition' but stifles the phrase before it can leave her mouth. 'Ron's worried about you too, and he's always round at my flat. Please?'

'It was one stupid mistake,' Harry mutters. 'One stupid - Look, I don't need looking after,' he says, straightening up. 'I can take care of myself.'

'It'd make me feel better,' Hermione says, and she means it too. 'Harry, you asked for my help. Don't push it away when I give it.'

Harry rubs his chin distractedly, making a face at the rasp of stubble under his fingers. Hermione knows him well enough to know when he's thinking. 'All right,' he says at last. 'I'll get my trunk.'

***

A familiar owl manages to catch Hermione on the doorstep, as she's juggling a bag of shopping and searching for her keys, fumble-fingered in her hurry to get out of the rain. She unties the letter from its leg as soon as she's got the door open, and it flies off, disgruntled, into the raincloud-gloom.

As soon as she's inside, she abandons the shopping and unfolds the parchment carefully. Crookshanks winds himself about her legs, but she ignores him, and he stalks away. She'll give him attention later. Right now there are more important things on her mind.

 _My dearest Hermione,_

 _I have one more small rumour for you. It is hard for me to say - it is not polite for the ears of women, but you are a researcher like me, and I know you will forgive me for speaking of such things._

 _You know that there was a war of magic against Grindelwald. There were for a time many men in armies, fighting this war. There were no women, of course. I do not know the proper ways to say this in English, but sometimes the men's friendships became more deep. And sometimes even now of men in my country, it is said that they have no grandmothers, only grandfathers. It is a great insult, of course, and not believed, but I have found the records from Healers at that time. There are one or two that say that they had to take babies from the stomachs of soldiers - they thought it was a hex by Grindelwald's men, but I think not._

 _Again, this is hard to say. I have spent time in your country, as you know, and other countries where it is allowed, to speak of men with lovers who are men, but in my country still it is not right. But I think that perhaps this is a thing that happened during the war-time, when there was fear and unhappiness for soldiers, and they wanted to forget for a while. I think that perhaps they made this spell happen as an accident, in their confusedness._

 _It is only a tale, but I thought to tell you anyway, because you asked for such things. I hope it is useful to you in your work._

 _My own studies continue well._

 _Love from myself and Nadejda also._

 _Yours_

 _Viktor Krum._

Hermione smiles a little sadly. The Quidditch world may have bemoaned Viktor Krum's loss to the international game (although he still plays for his local side) with a quintuple-fractured leg at the age of twenty, but the world of European history and genealogy gained a fine mind, and Hermione blesses him.

The doorbell rings. She stuffs the letter into her coat pocket and goes to answer it.

'Is he here? Is he okay?' Ron asks, after kissing her in greeting. She grabs him by the elbow as he tries to forge past her to get into the living room. He's damp from the rain, but she holds on anyway, trying to buy Harry some time.

'He's here, and he's fine, but Ron, what have you heard?'

'Just that he's sick, why?' Ron's eyes narrow. 'He's not dying, is he? Merlin's beard, Hermione, he's been like this for months, you could have told me sooner so I'd have time to say-'

'He's not dying, Ron, for heaven's sake. He's pregnant!'

Ron looks at Hermione in a state of acute shock for a split second and then laughs. 'Nice one, Hermione. What's really wrong with him?'

'I'm not joking!' Though she wishes she was. Having a pregnant man about the house gives her something to puzzle over and think about - the sheer biology of it has given her many headaches already - but it also gives her swollen ankles and strange cravings to deal with. Not to mention Harry's habit of leaving Quidditch magazines and plates about the place.

'Love, I know you probably think humour is the best way to help me through difficult times, and I can see how you'd get that impression given my family, but-'

'I'm being serious, Ron.' Hermione accompanies this with her best "the world is about to end" face, but Ron's too used to it by now.

'So'm I. Men can't get pregnant, Hermione.'

'I know you're talking about me,' Harry calls from the living room. 'Get in here, Ron. If you could feel this little bastard kick, you'd know she's telling the truth.'

Ron gives Hermione a peculiar look at that, but goes to greet his best friend, leaving her in the hallway to take off her coat and hang her scarf up and attempt to fluff her hair back into some semblance of life before joining them.

It takes some time, some confusion, and a few unnecessarily graphic gestures Hermione hopes she'll not see again in a hurry, but they get there eventually.

'So you're really pregnant.' Ron's next to Harry on the sofa, idly scratching Crookshanks behind the ears, and he gives his friend a sideways look, waiting for Harry to crack and start laughing. Hermione recognises the face. After all, she'd done a reasonable imitation of it herself a month ago.

'Yes, Ron, I'm really pregnant.'

'Buggering Merlin!' Ron exclaims.

And that, at least, gets a proper laugh out of Harry, although when Ron realises exactly what he's said and how relevant it is to the topic at hand he blushes a ferocious crimson.

Hermione doesn't even have the heart to scold him for his language.

'So you ... hang on, how did it get in there?'

And _that_ explanation is very short and to the point.

'So you and another bloke-'

Harry's face very eloquently dares Ron to make a comment on that subject. Ron wisely does not. He may be a traditional man at heart, Ronald Weasley, but he's also a _decent_ man, and a loyal friend. Hermione suspects the thought process went something along the lines of 'Harry is my best mate. If Harry takes it up the bum from other blokes, then taking it up the bum from other blokes is okay.'

And then, because he's Ron and to him boundaries are things to trip over, he says 'So who's the father?' in a jovial, leg-pulling sort of way and the atmosphere in the room turns stormy in an instant.

'Doesn't matter,' Harry says in a flat voice.

'Of course it does, mate. I mean. He'd want to know, wouldn't he? _I'd_ want to know,' Ron adds. 'People like to know when they're about to have kids.'

'The only person about to have a kid is me,' Harry says, in a very definite tone. 'It's no-one else's business.'

***

 _Potter_

 _Sulking for six months is hardly mature. Don't make me come looking for you._

 _Owl me._

 _Malfoy_

Harry burns the note.

***

The identity of Harry's lover is intriguing Hermione far more than she'll let on. Assuming it’s a lover, of course, and not just a one night stand, or - she frowns at the thought - a friend with benefits, though that doesn’t _fit_ with the Harry she knows, but then, the Harry she knows isn’t interested in men, the Harry she thought she knew would never think of abandoning his child. The question of _who_ , though intriguing, takes second place to _why_ , and _what_. When Harry and Ginny took up together after the war, Harry was proud to have her on his arm, he wanted the world to know that he had this precious shining thing, but now all he wants to do is hide in secrecy and sullen glares. The mystery niggles at her.

She potters around her kitchen while he's having a bath, pondering.

So what is it? What are they to each other? She doesn't think Harry's the type to have an affair, but that at least could be an explanation for his silence.

Although maybe the fact that the other person is male is his problem. She's never thought he was against that sort of thing, and he never said a word about Seamus and Dean except to wish them luck, but maybe accepting it for other people and admitting it to yourself are different things. It’s possible, she thinks, stopping by the window to gaze out at Crookshanks in the neat little back yard, that the Harry she knew, the Harry she _knows_ , is just the Harry he shows to the world.

The thought rankles. She wishes he'd been comfortable enough to tell her before now. She'd like to think that he'd trust her with that, trust Ron with that. Aren't they best friends? They never used to hide anything from each other.

An owl flutters against the window pane, and she lets it in.

 _My dearest Hermione,_

 _Only a fast note today as I am meeting Nadejda after she finishes at work - we will celebrate her birthday tonight. I am writing to ask if perhaps you have any of our notes still from when we considered the problem of Metamorphmagus heredity. I know we spoke of this but I can't remember the details. I believe we spoke also of Parselmouths and the possibility of natural Animagi? Wizarding heredity is so complex._

 _I must sign off now or I will never get away, I fear._

 _Yours,_

 _Viktor Krum_

She smiles and tucks the note into her pocket just as Harry comes in, looking freshly-washed and wrapped in a fluffy red dressing-gown. 'I thought I saw an owl,' he says, leaning against the sideboard to take some of the weight from his feet. 'Anything for me?'

'Oh, no,' she says. 'Just junk mail.'

'Bit late, isn't it?' Harry asks, smoothing a hand unconsciously over his belly, then reaching for the teabags. 'Cuppa?' he asks.

'Please.'

The note goes into her files in her office, and she reminds herself that she should reply to it sooner rather than later. It isn't until she gets to bed later that she realises she lied to Harry about the letter, even though he likes Viktor, sort of, and it was just a request for some information.

Crookshanks mews in annoyance as she sighs and rolls over, dislodging him from her feet. She wishes they’d taught ethics at Hogwarts, because she sees the difference, between _lying_ and sparing them, but if anyone were to ask, she’s not sure she could put it into adequate words.

She's not hiding anything, not really. It's just that she _knows_ her friends, and Wizarding history isn't exactly something they're interested in. She's just saving them from tedious conversation. It's not lying. Not really.

***

Hermione has decided to go along to Harry's Healer's appointments. This is because someone in the room needs to keep track of both when Harry _should_ be taking his potions, and when Harry is _actually_ taking his potions, and be able to watch out for the discrepancies. Left to himself, Harry will angrily forget the details and then where will they be?

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Harry has managed to get an appointment with the one Healer who could conceivably be persuaded to lie for him, which means that maybe he'll get sick leave. And by 'sick leave' Hermione means time in which to figure out how to get the now quite large baby out of Harry. From the size of him, it's probably approaching full term, but with his usual stubbornness, he's refused to even hint at a potential conception date. And even if he did, there's no way of knowing whether the gestation period will match the more normal, female sort of pregnancy. Quite frankly, all Hermione knows right now is that she doesn't know very much at all, and it worries her more than she likes to let on.

' _Please_ , Neville,' Harry implores.

Neville's office is light and airy and, unsurprisingly, full of houseplants, including his prized _Mimbulus mimbletonia_. Hermione edges out of the way of a questing tendril of Venomous Tentacula, and watches his reaction to Harry Potter, Boy Who Begged. So far, it doesn't appear to be going Harry's way.

'Harry, you realise that if I'm caught lying on documents-'

'And if it gets out to the world that I'm pregnant? Neville, please. You're the one person who can do this for me.'

And Neville _will_ do this for Harry. Hermione can see it in his face. When push comes to shove, they will all close ranks around Harry. There may be life after Hogwarts, but Hogwarts made them who they are, and the DA and the Order ... they are as intrinsic as being Gryffindor, as natural a way of doing things as breathing and walking. Support Harry, because he needs support, because you need him, because ...

Because family is something you build, from mismatched bricks and unlikely mortar.

Because some things never change.

Neville signs the Healer's orders, but there's a price in the form of more paperwork. 'I'm your primary-care Healer now, okay, Harry?' he says, flourishing a very official piece of parchment. 'I want to keep an eye on you,' he continues, a bit quieter, and Hermione smiles. As they go to leave, he catches Hermione's arm.

'He's not doing what he's been told, is he?' he mutters in her ear. She shakes her head. 'Owl me _immediately_ if anything changes, if he starts complaining of abdominal pains, or - well, I guess you can probably work out what's serious.'

'Probably,' she says. _Definitely_ , she thinks. Her dreams of late have taken a turn towards the gory and painful. She'll be thankful when this is all over and she can get back to sleep filled with work, and Ron, and leprechauns in libraries, and being chased by flying squid that need her to sign documents, and -

'Tell him, if Dawlish gives him any trouble, he's to come and ask _me_ , not harass Harry,' Neville adds. 'And, Hermione?'

'Yes?'

'You're researching this, right?'

Some things never change.

***

'The usual?' Ron asks Neville when he makes it to their corner in the Leaky Cauldron. Neville always gets there first - St. Mungo's is closer than the Ministry. He looks tired when he nods.

Tom doesn't even bother to ask, just lines them up, and Ron carries them back to the table. They sink the pints in silence, and the next pints, and the ones after that as well before either of them speaks.

'I suppose you know,' Neville ventures at last. 'Hermione knows, and it's Harry, so I suppose you know.'

Ron nods. Shrugs, takes another gulp, drums the fingers of his free hand idly on the tabletop.

'He's a bloody idiot,' Neville says, with some feeling, draining the last dregs out of his glass. 'Don't tell me I'm wrong, Ron.'

'Wasn't going to,' Ron points out. It isn't as if he disagrees, anyway. 'If any of us was going to be a bloody idiot, it'd be Harry,' he adds with asperity and fondness.

'A bloody idiot,' agrees Neville, and gets up to grab the next round. When he plonks himself back down, he asks, 'What the hell is he going to do?'

'Dunno.' Ron considers the bottom of his glass as if it can focus everything for him. 'You going to help him?'

The look Neville gives him says it all. 'Are you?' the Healer asks instead of answering.

'All right, it was a stupid question.'

'He doesn't want help, though,' Neville points out. 'He's angry.'

Ron thinks back over the years he's known Harry, Neville's known Harry, and puts his glass down. 'So?' It's not like that's _different_ in any way.'

***

Hard questions are part of research - asking them is part of being a researcher. Ducking when people throw heavy objects at you in outrage is often part of being a researcher too, but Hermione suspects she won't need to in this case, despite the nature of the question.

'What were the alternatives?' she asks Neville by Floo late one evening, when Harry is asleep and Neville is back from the pub. It's late and he's the kind of sober where there just isn't enough alcohol in the world to do a thing about it. He frowns at her.

'Alternatives?' he asks, carefully. He knows exactly what she's talking about.

'Alternatives to Harry having a baby,' she clarifies unnecessarily. 'I wonder, if he'd had the choice ...'

'No,' he says, shaking his head. 'It wouldn't have been safe. If I'd heard of someone _offering_ him that option ...' He grimaces.

'Less safe than letting Harry carry a baby to term?'

'The baby's in there, there's not a lot we can do about it. We'll have to figure something out, hopefully before push comes to shove. But, Hermione, we don't know enough for there to _be_ other options. It's as simple as that. Not enough data. We don't know how his body is sustaining the baby, we don't know where the baby _is_ , and the getting-it-out scenario is going to be enough trouble when he's at full term - I wouldn't want to put him through traumatic surgery just to get out something dead. It's Harry, Hermione. You know what he's like about children. It'd destroy him.'

'And if he loses the baby?' she asks, because thinking about it hurts her, because she knows how much it would hurt Harry, despite his protestations that he doesn’t even want it, and so it's a question she has to ask.

Neville winces. 'Then ... then we'll find a way, I suppose.'

'Do you think he will?'

'I don't know, Hermione. I really don't know. No-one's ever done this before, that I can find out. He could be giving birth to a Hippogriff for all I can tell.'

There's a banging noise from Neville's end, and Neville looks away briefly. 'Ron's up again,' he says. 'I should go.' He withdraws from the fire.

Hermione remembers, a long time ago now, Harry's reaction to finding out that Lupin had walked away from his own child, Harry's godson, to help Harry save the world. Oh yes. She knows what Harry is like about children. And she knows it's been done before, although what she _doesn't_ know is how much good it would do to tell Neville that she's got some historical notes on pregnant soldiers, but not the field medics' notes on what they did with them. She can't even tell him if the babies survived, or the fathers, despite Viktor's talk of men who have no grandmothers. She has no data either.

She wonders, even though Neville seems to think no right-thinking Healer would even suggest it, if Harry had had the option. Not that he would ever have taken it, but ... if he chose, if he actively had the ability to say yes or no, and said yes ...

Harry hasn't had a lot of choices about the important things in his life.

***

 _You can't be dead because I would have heard, and been invited to about sixteen parties to boot. And probably the wake too, if Granger is still as sentimental as she used to be. If you'd shacked up with someone, to use the vulgar phrase, I would have heard about that as well, because it would have been headline news._

 _I can only come to the conclusion that you're ignoring me. Stop being childish, Potter._

 _I'll be at your flat in an hour. Don't bother to put the kettle on. I was never interested in you for your domestic skills._

One hour and fifteen minutes later, a second owl swoops through the open window of Hermione’s guest bedroom.

 _Not funny._

 _I'll find you. You'd better have a good reason, Potter. I don't like to be ignored._

There is a little cone of ash on the bedside table now. Harry sweeps it into the palm of his hand and carries it to the rubbish bin. Of all the things he has to deal with, this is the one he's least inclined to bother with right now. He doesn't have the energy to manage Malfoy and his stupid insults and his one-track-mind act (although he's always at pains to point out that he's not interested in Harry for his conversation, that's not actually the only thing they do).

He used to have the energy. It used to be the one thing keeping him going after Ginny walked out.

He'd walked into Borgin and Burke's one afternoon, on official Auror business. His head was still spinning and asking questions and he just wanted to _punch_ something, or someone. Malfoy had been there, buying or selling, Harry didn't know and didn't bother to ask.

'See something you want?' Malfoy had asked, slyly.

'Yeah, actually,' Harry said, meaning an arrest. Malfoy had other ideas. They still involved the handcuff spell, admittedly. They broke a bedframe in the Leaky Cauldron. There wasn't going to be an after that, but ... after that, they met at Harry's flat.

Unprofessional. Irrational. Insane. Addictive. And no-one else knew about it, which was half the attraction.

It's ruined now, of course. Harry washes the smudges of ash from his hands, and tries to forget about Malfoy.

***

Hermione hates going to dinner at the Burrow. It's not that Mrs Weasley (Hermione still has a hard time calling her Molly, even after all these years) isn't kind, or that they don't have a nice time, or that the food is bad, but somehow, all Hermione feels is pressure when they visit there. Pressure to be married, pressure to be a good housewife, pressure to be a mother.

And the worst bit is, she's fairly certain that no-one but her is thinking that. It's just that this is the environment Ron grew up in, and being there with him means she keeps imagining the day she turns into his mother, and while she will never tell him this, the idea terrifies her.

The Burrow has changed, as well. Now it's just Mr and Mrs Weasley and George who live there, so meals involve a level of elbow-room that none of them would ever have dreamed of in former days. There's less clutter, with fewer teenage boys living at home, and the garden has more gnomes in it now that no-one is getting in trouble and having to evict them as punishment.

This can't be Hermione's future. She won't let it be. Because Mrs Weasley is a heroine of two wars, and raised six fine sons and one strong daughter, each of them heroes (or a heroine) in their own right according to the histories of wizarding Britain being written right now, and yet, here she is, pottering around in a falling-down house, not knowing what to do with herself because her children are gone, flown from the nest or dead, and they were her _life_.

This is the woman who defeated Bellatrix Lestrange, the right hand of Voldemort himself, and she spends her days _dusting_. And that's why every time Ron makes some gesture towards proposing, Hermione puts him off before he can get there. Because she can't be that.

Mrs Weasley hugs Hermione when she gets there, and hugs her when they leave, as well. 'Take care,' she says, and _means_ it so deeply it's sad.

***

 _  
**October**   
_

'Give Harry my very best!'

'Harry's all right, isn't he?'

'Tell Harry the best cure for Grumbling Gastritis is a cold compress soaked in essence of Murtlap on the stomach.'

They stop by Hermione's desk to say something, or catch her in the halls. He's still everyone's lucky charm. She wonders what they would think if they knew Harry was sitting in her flat, scowling at his swollen ankles and eating slice after slice of dry toast interspersed with handfuls of Bertie Botts' Every Flavour Beans.

Ron has tried to talk to Harry about the ... well, the _other_ father, to no avail. He shuts up faster than a clam any time the subject is mentioned.

The question occupying Hermione's mind right now, though, is less 'How did it get in there?' and much more 'How do we get it out?' The question of how it got in there, she’s decided, is very much none of her business. If she's honest, she's happy Harry had someone.

If she's honest, she doesn't want to think about how she would feel in that person's shoes.

***

'Look, just leave it alone, mate,' Harry says eventually.

'Can't blame me for being interested,' Ron points out, as if they haven't had this argument twenty times already. He takes another swig of his pumpkin juice. In an unusual display of tact, he's decided not to drink around Harry, who can't imbibe for obvious reasons. 'Takes two to tango and all.'

'It's none of your business.'

'Maybe not, but it's _someone_ else's business.'

'I'm the one with the baby stuffed up my nethers, I'm the only one involved,' Harry snaps.

'You're not the one who put it there, though, are you?' Ron asks owlishly. He gulps more juice. 'Look, I'm just saying, mate. If I'd got Hermione in the family way, and she didn't tell me, and ran off ... I'd be a bit upset.'

'He wouldn't want to know,' Harry mutters, after a moment.

Ron makes a significant face, but says nothing more.

***

Ron knows Hermione owls Krum. He got over that a long time ago. He doesn't look for the letters, he doesn't ask about them, he just accepts it. After all, it's him she turns to at the end of a day.

But sometimes she leaves the letters lying around, and he sees 'Dearest Hermione' (he doesn't read any further), and he wonders. Obviously Krum's just the one that got away, he's her friend, they have a lot in common. He's fairly sure that's what Krum is to Hermione, but he doesn't know what Hermione is to Krum.

Ron loves Hermione an awful lot, more than anyone, and she's everything to him, but sometimes, he wonders what _he_ is to _her_. He hasn't properly asked her to marry him (although he's hinted) because he has this funny feeling she'd look at him all soft and adoring and as if he hadn't got the point, and somehow him wanting to have her forever and look after her and (maybe) y'know, have some kids at some point, is just him and his oppressive Wizarding pureblood privileged antiquated social norms (sometimes he wonders if he could make a drinking game out of her rants, they all usually use the same set of words anyway).

He loves her an awful lot, yes, but sometimes he'd like it if she treated him less as her pet spaniel puppy who crapped on the carpet and more like someone with a brain of his own, who would certainly have got several NEWTs if he’d actually been at school to sit his exams, if the exams hadn't been cancelled because of the war (and didn't that create absolute havoc for employers the year after? Someone could at least have arranged for them all to take them later or something, but no, apparently courageous child war heroes don't get exams, they get medals and cream tea with scones, and then years afterwards someone goes 'I'm terribly sorry, Mr Weasley, but without knowing your abilities at Charms I'm afraid I can't really give you the job-'). The Aurors took him on, but he wonders if that's more to do with Harry than with him.

He wanted those NEWTs. He wanted the bit of paper that said that he, Ronald Bilius Weasley, was _good_ at something, once, that wasn't trailing around after his mates.

He wants to marry Hermione, and he wants children to send to Hogwarts one day, too, and the most important thing Ron Weasley wants is to _be_ Ron Weasley, dutiful husband and good mate and capable Auror and fond father and a lot of things that other people are as well. Not Ron Weasley, that bloke who helped Harry Potter a bit during the war. Not Ron Weasley, wait, who's that next to him? Not Ron Weasley, why on earth did Hermione Granger pick _him_?

He doesn't know what Hermione wants, but he's prepared to wait for her to tell him. And when she does, he's got a ring in a tiny little box sitting in his bedside cabinet, next to his photo albums and his Keeper's gloves, just in case.

***

 _Potter_

 _I don't believe for a second that you've actually got Grumbling Gastritis. For a start, aren't Gryffindors supposed to either soldier through their pain or die by inches heroically all over the place?_

 _If you don't tell me where you are, I'm going to Granger._

That note gets crumpled angrily in Harry's fist. How dare he? High-and-mighty Malfoy, still acting like he owns the world even after the war and the tribunals and the retribution and remuneration and the _blame_. He's the only member of his family not in Azkaban, and does he ever care to remember it?

Harry conveniently ignores the fact that he wants to forget the war as well, and with it forget the fact that everything's changed since then. He picks up his quill and grabs a tatty piece of parchment out of the mess spilling out of his trunk, which he still hasn't bothered or managed to unpack properly, and then scowls at his inkwell for what seems like hours, before finally penning:

 _Malfoy_

 _You need to learn to take a hint. I don't want to see you, and I'm sick. Leave me alone. Leave Hermione alone. Just piss off, won't you?_

The owl is back suspiciously fast.

 _Too late. Be glad I don't Appparate into her spare room._

'What did you tell Malfoy?' Harry demands of Hermione as soon as she gets in.

She calmly hangs her coat up before turning and saying evenly, 'That you're sick, and not fit to have visitors.' He relaxes for just a second before she continues with 'Why, what were you afraid I'd say?'

'I-'

'Harry, I think we've already established I'd lie for you. I've lost count of the laws I've broken for you. Give me a bit of credit. I'm not about to tell Malfoy - _Malfoy_ of all people - that you're pregnant.'

'Sorry,' Harry mumbles.

Hermione regards him with bright, knowing eyes. Gently, she says 'You were afraid I'd tell him. Why?'

Ron would have made the guess. Hermione _asks_. 'You already know,' Harry says, wanting to make it accusing but not having the heart.

'I guessed,' she admits. 'But only just now.'

'Going to lecture me?'

'About what? Fraternising with the enemy? Harry, the war's over. School's over. You're both adults.' Her mouth twists. 'I can't say I understand entirely, but ... you're consenting adults. It's no business of mine.'

And with that she walks into the living-room, leaving Harry, poleaxed, standing in the hallway. Passing the pegs on the wall, her movement stirs the cloth of her raincoat, and a piece of parchment falls out of a pocket. Harry picks it up, intending to shove it back, but the phrase '... babies from the stomachs ...' catches his eye, and he can't stop himself from reading the whole thing.

He almost scrunches this letter up in an angry fist as well, before remembering it's not his, and he shouldn't have read it, despite the fact that it's blatantly about him.

Hermione and her research. He really shouldn't be surprised. She's probably gone through the Ministry library already, asking weird questions the librarian won't figure out the real problem from. The war's over, school's over, but Hermione hasn't changed.

He shouldn't be surprised, and he shouldn't be angry.

 _... when there was fear and unhappiness for soldiers, and they wanted to forget for a while. I think that perhaps they made this spell happen as an accident, in their confusedness ..._

The baby kicks, and he winces, and takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. The baby kicks again, and for the first time he settles a hand over it consciously, willing it to stop. 'Come on, lad,' he mutters. 'Give me a break.'

Harry stuffs the letter back into the coat's pocket. He's been telling Ron all along that he's the only one involved, that this is his issue. That this is his responsibility.

Looks like he was right.

***

For someone who's such a seasoned correspondent, sometimes Hermione gets owls she just doesn't know what to do with.

 _Granger,_

 _I'd appreciate being kept informed if Potter's condition worsens. I'd also appreciate it if you didn't tell him I owled you._

 _Malfoy_

It comes by eagle owl, on thick parchment and in dark, wet-emerald coloured ink, very predictable, very Malfoy. The subject matter is anything but.

Hermione considers the burden of trust Harry has placed in her to keep his secret, and weighs against it the fact that Malfoy evidently cares enough to be concerned about Harry's apparent illness. The scales don't tip enough to let her reply to the note, but she tucks it away in her desk. There might be a time to tell Malfoy, to tell him something at least. She won't rule it out.

She has another owl to write, anyway, so she gets out quill and parchment.

 _Dear Viktor_

 _Sorry it's been so long since I owled you - thank you so much for all the digging you've been doing for me. I know the subject matter isn't approved of by your institute but I do think you're on the right track for the particular case I'm investigating. Did your wartime Healers leave any notes on how to deal with this issue?_

 _I hope your research is going well - I had some thoughts for you on the Metamorphmagi subject. Have you considered tracing other traits as well - magical and physical - to see if there is any correlation between the appearance of, say, height, or sex, or parental traits such as hair colour or eye colour? Are there any Metamorphmagus Squibs, was my other thought, although of course this would be difficult to look into given the wizarding history of expunging Squibs from the records, but it would be interesting to see if natural, unconscious magical abilities such as this were in any way linked to a person's ability at conscious, directed magic._

 _I hope everything is going well for you and for Nadejda, and that you haven't driven each other mad by now! Ron and Harry both say 'hi'._

 _Yours_

 _Hermione_

***

'Fucking logistics,' Neville says, and Ron nods.

Most of their conversations at the moment are starting at the three-pint mark and most of them involve the fucking logistics. Ron hasn't the faintest smattering of Healing knowledge but even he knows there's only one possible way in or out, and that that doesn't make the slightest bit of sense when you're talking about a baby, and nine months.

Their flat is covered in Healer's textbooks now - in desperation Neville's even resorted to the Muggle _Gray's Anatomy_ , with its eerie, unmoving line drawings of body parts Ron has no desire to learn more about. None of them appear to have helped. Apparently Harry's innards are a one-way street.

'It's a nightmare,' he says, agreeing, as Tom brings over the next round.

Neville looks at him. His eyes are a little sunk in his face; he looks knackered. 'It's all my bloody nightmares,' he says.

Ron thinks about that. Harry, and blood, and no way out, and the fucking logistics? Sounds familiar.

***

 _  
**November**   
_

'This ... ow. This hurts,' Harry gasps suddenly in the middle of dinner one night, approximately two and a half months after he first owled Hermione. His fork and knife clatter to the floor as he clutches his gut.

'Harry?' Hermione asks, concerned.

'Might ... be a good idea to owl Neville,' Harry says, easing off the chair onto the carpet, propping himself up against the wall. He grimaces.

'I was just thinking that,' Hermione says, hurriedly tying the pre-prepared note - _It's starting_ (cryptic enough to be nonsense to anyone except its intended recipient) - to her owl's leg. 'Tell me where it hurts,' she says, hurrying back to his side.

'Where do you _think_?' he grits out. 'Hermione, it's stuck, how's it gonna - _OW_ \- how's it gonna come _out_ , I don't even -' He's starting to panic.

'It'll be all right,' Hermione says, a trifle uncertainly, as she wracks her brains for the few Healer's spells she knows and what little human biology she managed to learn in Muggle primary school before that fateful letter came - it seems to her, not for the first time, that her Hogwarts education wasn't as comprehensive as it might have been - and comes to the conclusion that she still doesn't know where the hell the baby is lodged, or how they're going to get it out, or in fact how Harry's even being going to the bathroom for the past nine or so months, because the obvious place would seem to prevent ... She really hopes Neville has worked this stuff out.

Harry's face is a pale puce, and his hands flutter and clench with what Hermione assumes is pain. She tries to think this through logically, comes to the conclusion that for it to hurt, the baby must be pushing, but where it's pushing from and where to she can't even begin to guess.

And then emerald fire sparkles in the fireplace, and Neville stumbles through dizzily into the room carrying an enormous bag and his wand already out. He'd evidently run into the fire, and only just made it out at the right fireplace, because he blinks around the room, revolving slowly -

'Over here,' Hermione calls, and Neville sights on her voice like a compass on North. He drops his bag.

'Harry mate, are you all right?' he asks urgently. 'Tell me where it hurts.'

Harry grimaces and waves vaguely at his pelvis. 'It's got - nowhere to go,' he grunts. 'Months now, I didn't even want to _think_ where it was - stuck, Neville. Can't come out. Hurts,' he adds thickly.

'I know, mate, I know,' Neville soothes, kneeling beside Harry and, muttering, casting some spell Hermione isn't familiar with. At once Harry looks a little easier, though still sweat-streaked and obviously sore. 'Pass me that bag, Hermione?'

Hermione is glad to do as he asks.

'You gonna let me have a look?' asks Neville carefully, covering Harry from the midriff down with a sheet he pulls out of his bag. 'Hermione, could you get me any spare towels you have? And -'

'Boil some water?' she asks. After all, that's what they do in the books.

Neville grins, snorting. 'Actually I just wanted to know if you could give us a moment here?' It takes a second before Hermione realises that Neville needs Harry to take his trousers off and that everyone might be a bit more comfortable with the situation if she wasn't there for that. She nods and hurries off to find the handily-distracting towels.

She dithers for a moment at the linen cupboard over what _colour_ of towel, for Merlin's sake, before catching herself and just grabbing everything within reach, and the pillows off her bed as an afterthought, and a blanket, and thus bundled up, she staggers back into the kitchen only to find that Neville and Harry aren't there.

'Through here,' Neville calls from the living room. He's got Harry on the sheet-covered sofa, and is doing something esoteric beneath yet another sheet. Harry's jeans are collapsed in a sad heap by the foot of the sofa.

'How're you feeling, Harry?' Hermione asks, dropping the towels in as neat a pile as she feels able to manage and kneeling by his head.

'Full,' is Harry's terse reply. He does sit up enough to let her shove a pillow behind him, though.

'I'm going to have to cut the baby out,' Neville says, looking up from his inspection of Harry's nether regions. He looks distinctly unhappy. 'But it's anyone's guess where it is, exactly.'

'Does it matter?' Harry demands. 'It ... _ow_ ... can't be that hard to spot once you're in, right?'

'No, but-'

'Do it.' Harry's voice is barely more than a growl.

'Harry, we have to get you St. Mungo's before I can-'

'Do it _here_.'

'It's not safe.' Neville and Harry glower at each other, both sweating and both equally determined not to budge.

'Is moving me safe?'

'Safer than cutting you open on Hermione's _couch_.'

'I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to St. Mungo's. Women have home births all the time.'

'Not home Caesarean sections!' Neville exclaims, throwing his hands up. 'The risk of sepsis alone is ...'

'Neville. Can you do this?' Harry grits out. Whatever spell Neville cast earlier, it does seem to be taking the edge off what Hermione would call contractions if Harry had any of the requisite muscles to contract. But the edge isn't the whole of it, and Harry's knuckles whiten and redden alternately on the cushions of the sofa as Hermione watches.

'Yes, but-'

'Then _do it_.' Harry's expression is desperate now. 'This baby isn't going to wait much longer,' he adds with a high-pitched gasp.

Neville takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders.

Ten minutes later, Hermione has picked up a fair number of very specialised spells she hopes she's never going to have to use or see used ever again, and been acquainted with bits of Harry she'd never even considered, like something Neville referred to in a voice that was slightly fainter than she liked to hear from a Healer as the peritoneum, and what looked like _pints_ of blood she was having to siphon away using one of those spells that she was probably not going to be able to forget at any moment in the near future.

Fortunately, the baby is, as Harry had pointed out it would have to be, quite visible, curled up inside an organ Neville is adamant shouldn't even exist.

He's easing his gloved hands around it now, chewing on his bottom lip as he explores where it's connected. 'This is ridiculous,' he's muttering under his breath. 'There's no way this baby could ever have come out naturally-'

'Do you think you could possibly worry about that bit later?' Harry says in a strained voice. 'Can we get it out unnaturally? _Please_?' Hermione knows he's numb from just below his armpits down, thanks to Neville, but it must be such a strange thing, especially when you can see it but not feel it. Hermione is sure she would have fainted by now.

'Right, yeah, sorry,' Neville says, and turns his attention to incising the membranes enclosing Harry's baby.

The first rattling gasp is what brings Hermione back to the scene at hand, and then Neville hands the baby to Hermione, and there's a brief placenta-juggling moment before both baby and afterbirth are deposited in towels. _Airway_ , Hermione reminds herself breathlessly, and fishes around its mouth to make sure no unspecified gunge is preventing breathing, before turning her attention to the umbilical cord and detaching it from the child.

Harry, who's busy having that cut healed, is now starting to look _very_ woozy, but he holds out his hands for his baby almost reflexively.

'Hey my lad,' he says tiredly as the baby squalls. 'That was a bit of a to-do, wasn't it?' It's only then that Hermione realises that after all that she didn't even check the baby's sex.

Neville finishes up and peels his gloves off. He catches Hermione's eye and grins, but she can't bring herself to grin back. She has this horrible feeling this is only the beginning of yet more trouble.

***

 _  
**December**   
_

'I'm not just giving him away!'

Harry's adamant that he's not naming the baby, which is currently feeding well off formula milk (whatever it is that caused Harry to manage to have a baby in the first place, it forgot to provide him with the necessary plumbing to _feed_ it), and he's equally adamant that he's not giving him up to an adoption agency just like that, either.

'Harry, if you want to vet every potential parent you're going to have to admit you've produced offspring,' Hermione points out exasperatedly one afternoon, perching on the arm of the couch as Harry, starting at last to look expert at the task, bottle-feeds his son.

'There's got to be some way to do this,' Harry retorts, equally exasperatedly. 'He's not a stray puppy, I'm not just handing him over to some agency and hoping.'

'Then someone, sooner or later, is going to have to know you're a parent.'

'Got to get a birth certificate as well,' Ron points out. He's tried quite hard to stay out of these arguments, and has proven strangely adept at heating milk and also at burping, skills he puts down to practice with Bill and Fleur's daughter, his appallingly lively niece Victoire, but every so often he does weigh in with something. 'It's been over a month, Harry. I reckon you've got about ten days before time's up on that one.'

Harry doesn't say anything.

'And the bugger is, you can't just say you're the father and register a birth on your own,' Ron adds blithely. 'Cos you're not married, it's just the mum the law's interested in. And we can't tell them you're the-'

'Ron, this isn't helping,' Hermione points out, watching Harry's jaw tighten.

'It's not me, it's the law,' Ron says a little aggrievedly. 'If the Ministry finds out, it'll be _worse_ than telling a couple of Registrars up at St. Mungo's.'

Hermione recognises the signs of Harry about to blow his top, which Ron almost certainly recognises as well, but doesn't think of backing off from, and decides that it's time to walk to the shops and give Harry some time to cool down.

***

Harry's putting the baby down for his nap when the unmistakable sound of Apparition reaches his ears. He finishes tucking his son in, smooths his hand over the baby's fuzzy head, and draws his wand very, very quietly.

Whoever it is is not in the hallway. They're not in the master bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, or the transfigured cupboard Hermione uses as a study, so Harry, having checked all those rooms as silently as he knows how, which is pretty damn silently, approaches the living room door.

'Oh for Merlin's sake, Potter, you act like the Dark Lord's hiding behind the door.' Malfoy slouches into view, sharp eyebrows raised, black robes dramatic and disreputable in their cut and in the way he wears them, and Harry glares to hide the fact that it's been a long time since he's seen Malfoy and he's lonely and angry and, well.

 _Baby in the next room, caesarean scar, best friend's flat,_ Harry's head reminds him.

'Breaking and entering?' he asks as drily as he can manage. Malfoy steps closer, right up to Harry's side, and grasps his wrist. Harry still hasn't put his wand down.

'Do you care?' Malfoy mutters in Harry's ear. He slides an arm around Harry's waist. 'You can cuff me if you want to.' He smiles against Harry's ear and adds, 'You usually do.'

'Bad timing, Malfoy,' Harry manages to get out just as Malfoy gets a hand up under Harry's shirt and finds the scar, which hasn't quite healed yet. And by 'hasn't quite healed' Harry means 'is red and swollen and angry', because apparently cuts that go right into your inner cavity and so forth can't just be healed with the wave of a wand.

'What the-' is all Malfoy says before the front door opens.

***

'Cup of tea?' Ron asks in a strained voice about ten seconds after Malfoy Disapparates. Without waiting for answers he grabs the bags of shopping and goes to the kitchen, leaving Hermione and Harry alone in the living room.

'I was about to tell him to leave,' Harry says, not making eye contact.

'Did you tell him he's a father?'

Harry kicks the sofa. 'No.'

'Harry-'

'I didn't exactly have the opportunity!' Harry exclaims. 'Use your brain, Hermione, he didn't come over because he wanted a chat.'

'... ah.'

Harry rolls his eyes. 'Not everything in this world is lovey-dovey and sparkles and unicorns,' he mutters.

'I never said-'

'No, but you assumed, didn't you? You assumed we're like you and Ron! Well, we're not. We're not even a 'we'. Him and me ... I don't love him, I don't even _like_ him, Hermione, and I ... we don't have picnics and nice conversations and afternoons out going to see films. It's just - we just ...'

'Yeah, all right, I think she gets it,' Ron says with warning in his tone, as he steps back into the room with a couple of half-hearted mugs of tea and a plate he's patently just upended the half-empty biscuit tin over, crumbs and all. Hermione is ridiculously grateful for the way he hands out the still-brewing drinks and sits down, sensible and stoic. 'We don't need to know the details, Harry.'

Harry gapes, mouth still forming the argument he was about to put forth. A hiccoughing cry from the back bedroom makes him turn on his heel instead, back to his son.

Ron beckons Hermione close, gives her a hug. 'He'll come round,' he murmurs. 'He's still our Harry, we'll sort him out.'

Hermione is mentally sorting through the information she has, the information she needs, and pats Ron on the back absent-mindedly as she realises she hasn't had a reply from Viktor yet.

***

 _Potter._

 _You've been letting other people hex you? I'm hurt._

Half an hour passes.

 _Are we still doing this? Tell me who sliced you up, Potter. I don't like having my things mistreated._

Another half an hour, and the back of Harry's robes are smudged grey with ashes where he wipes his hands after burning the notes.

 _I thought that one at least would get a rise out of you._

 _You're not going to tell me how you got hurt, are you? Stubbornness is one of your more unattractive traits, Potter._

Harry doesn't care what Malfoy thinks is unattractive, because he doesn't care what Malfoy thinks of him. Because he knows Malfoy's just trying to get a reaction.

When he finds himself itching to reach for quill and parchment, he holds his son instead, rocking him gently in the twilit bedroom, and reminds himself it's for the best.

Harry hates it when things are for the best.

***

The long-awaited owl turns up when Hermione is on her way to work. She sends the bird off into the cold grey sky and unpeels a hand out of a glove in order to unfold and read the letter.

 _My dearest Hermione,_

 _I had not considered your idea about the Squibs before - as you say it would be difficult, but perhaps not too difficult. There is at the moment a research group who are examining the records for Squibs. Perhaps I could work with them on this matter. A good thought!_

 _I am sorry but the Healers left us no information. It appears from our readings that the soldiers who suffered from this misworking had their babies removed by mostly guesswork, and not all of them lived past this trauma. It is truly a sad period in our history. Have you had any thoughts or found any clues in your research of whether this was a curse, as the Healers said, or done by the soldiers by accident? May I hope that you will publish this work when it is finished?_

 _Nadejda sends her greetings as always._

 _Yours,_

 _Viktor Krum_

Hermione folds the letter up after she's read it, and carefully puts it in her pocket, to retrieve when she gets home. The feel of the thin, dry expanse of paper against her fingers makes her smile.

Malfoy catches her outside the Ministry, cuts in between her and the door in a thick black cloak, collar turned up.

'Malfoy,' she says, by way of greeting. He doesn't touch her, but it's evident if she tries to step around him, he'll just keep being in her way, so she stops and waits, letting her impatience show in her folded arms.

'Who cut him?' Malfoy asks.

'What's it to you?' she fires back, uncertain of what he wants, exactly. 'It's Harry's business, not yours.'

'I'll say what's my business,' he says, coldly. 'And I want to know, who took it into their head to hurt Harry Potter?'

'No-one,' she says. 'He's been ill, he had to have surgery. And I shouldn't even be telling you that, Malfoy. Now bugger off. If Harry wants you to know anything, he'll tell you.'

He doesn't bother to say goodbye, just steps out of her path and is gone down a side street - slightly hunched, keeping to himself. Harry says he and Malfoy don't like each other, it's just a convenient thing, using each other, and the question that occurs to her now is: if that's what Harry thinks, does he think Malfoy thinks that too? Probably.

But is he right?

 

***

'Cheers,' Ron says, taking the plate of pancakes Neville offers him and sitting down. Their elbows bang because the table's too small.

'Jam?'

'Ta.'

Then the radio goes on.

'How's things at Hermione's?' Neville asks eventually, during the adverts.

'Ridiculous.'

'Harry?'

'Both of them.' Ron takes another bite of pancake. That's pretty much the conversation, from start to finish. The sun slants in through the window, grimy-grey with dust, and warms the little kitchen. Celestina Warbeck warbles on the radio, and neither of them can be bothered to turn her off.

Eventually Neville gets up and starts pottering around, picking up plates and books and generally spreading the mess out more evenly over the place.

Ron likes this; peaceful cohabitation. He gets up too, starts attempting to clean as well. They bump hips occasionally, mostly because it's easier to bounce off each other than go around.

Sunshine floats through their flat and plates rattle and the old radio crackles as they move around it; two old friends, sharing space.

***

Hermione likes having Harry and his baby in her house. She likes having the company, particularly when Ron comes round in the evenings, as he often does, and they all have dinner together, and sit in the living room afterwards. It's homely, it's familiar, like the days when they all sat around in Gryffindor common room doing homework or telling stories. All the best bits of Hermione's life have been the bits where she's sitting on a squashy couch between Harry and Ron, with not a care in the world beyond whether or not she wants a mug of cocoa.

They have Christmas together as well, and sit around her tiny table pulling crackers and wearing ridiculous hats. It's stupid, but she's hated big Christmases since school. Her parents used to have all the cousins and aunts and uncles around for a huge turkey dinner, just like Ron's parents do, and she finds the whole thing stifling and distinctively unfestive, restless. Three of them sitting together seems just the right number, and she can relax and actually enjoy herself.

She bids Ron goodnight at the door when Harry puts the baby to bed, and then she means to go and get that mug of cocoa before retiring herself, but she pauses in the hallway near the spare room, and listens to Harry gruffly murmuring a lullaby, and can't help but smile.

***

 _Dear Viktor_

 _Thank you so much for all your help - my little project has come to its end now, and I just wanted to say how much of a help you've been with the research and so forth, it's really been appreciated. I'm not sure if I have enough to publish a paper - it was only a side project anyway. We'll see!_

 _As you probably know, there's a conference on in London soon based around stories of the war against Grindelwald - I'm presenting a short paper with Aberforth Dumbledore based on his experiences and Bathilda Bagshot's memoirs, and I was wondering if I'd see you there? I know you worked with some of the prisoners in Nurmengard on that oral history project - I was hoping you might present some of that, because it would be very interesting! Here in Britain we know very little about that aspect of the war, and I'm sure it would prove illuminating to many of my colleagues, as well as to me._

 _If you are coming, you're very welcome to stay with me - I have a spare room, and it would be lovely to see you again. I don't know if I ever showed you the photos of the summer we spent together. I had them developed not long ago - I'd lost the film right up until the last time I moved house, and then I found it in a box with some other old things. It's amazing how it all came rushing back to me, seeing those pictures._

 _Anyway, let me know about your plans._

 _Love to Nadejda, as always._

 _Yours,_

 _Hermione_

***

On New Year's Eve, Harry finally gives in to the nagging he's getting from every quarter, and goes to see Neville. Who should be on holiday, actually, but since he'd been one of the loudest voices doing the nagging, Harry decides that making him go to work on a public holiday is a just punishment.

He and the baby step through into Neville's office from the fireplace entirely as usual, but the expression on Neville's face as he goes to greet them tells Harry something is not quite normal.

'Hello Harry,' says a familiar voice from near Neville's desk, and Harry grits his teeth.

'Hi Luna,' he replies as neutrally as possible, although the look he shoots Neville is anything but. Neville shrugs and gestures Harry over to sit down, taking his ever-present bottle-and-nappy bag and hanging it on the coathook. 'I was under the impression that this was supposed to be private and confidential?' Harry says as soon as he sits.

Luna smiles.

Neville rolls his eyes. 'Were you also aware that you need to get the baby's - have you given him a name yet?' Harry shakes his head. 'Well, you need to register his birth in two days' time.'

'I can't, can I?' Harry points out. 'They need a mother to register a birth.'

'I know that, Harry, I'm a Healer.'

'Well, what am I supposed to _do_ then?' Harry says, controlling the urge to snap because of the dozing child in his arms.

'You could ask for help,' Luna points out. Harry'd almost forgotten she was in the room, actually. By 'help', he assumes she means he should have come to her. She should -they _all_ should - have realised by now, he won't take charity. He'll do what he has to by himself.

'You want to adopt the baby out,' Neville says. 'Luna wants a baby. And I know a Registrar. All we have to do is have Luna sign as the mother, keep the Daily Prophet out of things, and you can get on with your life, like you keep saying you want to do.'

'Can I hold him?' Luna asks, reaching out. Harry, not quite knowing what to think, lets her take his son from him. ‘He’s lovely,’ she says, cuddling him, and Harry has to admit, she’s a natural with his lad. The baby mumbles happily on the end of her pigtail as she holds him. ‘Have you thought of any names?’

Harry’s thought of a dozen, actually. James, for a start, and Albus, Remus, Fred. Alastor. He’d toyed with masculine versions of Nymphadora, even, before giving it up as a bad job (even Tonks had hated her given name, anyway). There were a lot of people he thought to name his kid after, not to mention the idea of giving him a name _without_ any bloody baggage. But in the end … ‘I thought I’d leave it for the new parents,’ he says instead of reeling off his list, and shrugs. ‘I’m not going to raise him, so I thought it’d be for the best.’

Luna nods, and looks down again at the little bundle in her arms. Harry does likewise, trying to see his boy through her eyes. He’s not a big baby, with a cap of darkish fuzzy hair that Neville says might go blond as he gets older, and the blue eyes all new babies have (although Harry has a sneaking suspicion that whatever his hair does, his son’s eyes will stay Malfoy blue just to spite him). She joggles him a little, and he chortles. ‘How about Sirius?’ she asks, and Harry’s throat tightens involuntarily. That hurt is still raw, probably will be forever, but … she knows Harry far, far too well, and suddenly he sees exactly why Neville brought her in on this.

‘Sirius is great,’ he says, feeling the words stick a little in his throat. He can’t help but smile, even so. He suddenly thinks of Luna, with a kid growing up, knowing her as Mum, and her healing scraped knees, and very seriously explaining things like Wrackspurts and Snorkacks. _She’ll tell the best bed-time stories_ , he thinks. _Much better than me._

‘Sirius Lovegood it is, then,’ says Neville, breaking into Harry’s little reverie, and he taps a severe-looking parchment form with his wand, setting neat, austere script curling over it. ‘If you hang on here a mo, Harry, Luna and I can get this signed by the Registrar, and we’ll be all done.’

This is all going so damned fast. Harry knows the Registrar thing is urgent, although he’s been trying to forget it for the past month, but still. Can’t he have even five minutes to say goodbye to his own son? What’s he going to do now? Should he just go home, back to his flat? What about Ron and Hermione? They’ve been helping him so much with the baby (Sirius, Harry reminds himself), and Hermione’s probably been kept awake just as much as Harry by late night crying and midnight feeds, and Ron always brings round milk powder if he thinks Harry and Hermione have forgotten …

‘Wait,’ says Harry, belatedly remembering that Luna doesn’t have Ron and Hermione, that she might have to do this on her own. ‘Luna, are you going to- who else is there-‘

‘Just me,’ she says quietly. ‘Dad managed it, after all.’

Harry doesn’t feel capable of coming up with a counter to that. And again, just seeing Luna with the - with _Sirius_ \- reassures him that this is a good choice. Although admittedly at this moment in time it is also his only choice, unless he wants to do as Hermione occasionally still suggests and keep him.

Which is not an option. Harry knows damn well he can’t parent and be an Auror, and he’d go mad if he had to give up his career, and he’d probably end up subconsciously taking it out on the kid, and … heavens, he _has_ got good at reeling off all the arguments.

‘Well,’ he says awkwardly, ‘I’m staying up at Hermione’s place at the moment, you can come and pick up all his stuff later if you like.’

‘I’m not just going to take him away from you, Harry,’ Luna says gently.

‘Course not,’ Harry replies, as heartily as he can. He knew that. Really.

But for all his protested lack of maternal instinct, someone walking away with his son still feels like, well, someone walking away with his son.

***

‘You what? Hi, Luna, by the way,’ is Ron’s opening gambit when he comes round innocently to visit his girlfriend, their mutual best friend, and his unnatural baby, and instead finds said girlfriend, said friend, and yet another friend in convoluted conversation revolving around the topic of the unnatural baby, which is lying on a changing mat in their midst emitting damp and cheerful bubbling noises.

‘Harry, go over that again,’ Hermione orders. She’s been here fifteen minutes and is still no closer, really, to ascertaining why Harry’s son is apparently now Luna’s son, and named Sirius (although she has to admit it suits the boy).

‘I told the Registrar he was mine,’ Luna says serenely. ‘I’ve been away doing research in Latvia for the past year, had an unwise fling and came home to have little Sirius here. And all of that’s true, except for the last bit.’ Hermione’s ears metaphorically prick up at the middle section of the story, but this is not the time for a gossip session.

‘Neville suggested it,’ Harry says, breaking in. ‘It makes sense, Hermione. And his birth’s been registered, so he’s not illegal, and he’s got a mum, and-‘

‘And you can all come over and visit any time,’ Luna adds.

‘Luna, are you sure you’re ready for-‘ Hermione starts, knowing she probably sounds like a wet hen but wanting to make sure Luna hasn’t felt pressured into this decision. She knows all too well what Neville and Harry can be like in concert.

‘Motherhood? Yes, quite sure. I’ve wanted a child for a while now, and this is much more sensible than expecting to trip over the right wizard in the street and just hoping we’d be compatible.’

Ron meets Hermione’s eye, and gives a tiny one-shouldered shrug, as if to say ‘That’s our Luna.’

***

 _  
**January**   
_

A week later, yet another note gets delivered by eagle owl to Harry when he’s alone in the house, waiting out the rest of his sick leave and champing at the metaphorical bit. He’s almost grateful for the distraction, until he reads it.

 _You’re clearly hiding something from me, and I’m going to find out what it is. Right now._

Harry starts burning the note just as Malfoy Apparates into his room and locks the door. He manages this before Harry can even get his wand up into a defensive position, let alone cast a hex. He really should have expected this, but his mind’s been all over the damn place, what with moving little Sirius out to Luna’s place with all his gear (in the middle of the night, too, for reasons of stealth, privacy and rampant paranoia), and starting slowly to pack his own things up to move back to his flat, which Hermione is unsubtly trying to talk him out of doing. He wants to ask her why she doesn’t just have Ron move in, but gets the idea that that’s a conversation she really doesn’t want to have just yet.

Malfoy sneezes, bringing Harry back to the present. ‘That explains a lot,’ Malfoy says, wrinkling his nose at the smell of burnt paper in the air. ‘Does Granger know you play pyromaniac in her guest bedroom?’

‘What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,’ Harry says evenly. ‘Just like she won’t know you were here this afternoon, because you’re going to leave _right now_.’ Harry’s decided the best way to deal with the Malfoy thing is to _never let it happen again_ , although like most of Harry’s good decisions, it’s proving hard to stick to. Something in him wants the company, wants the touch, even when he tries to tell himself what a stupid idea it is.

‘Nice try, Potter. But it’s been months, and you’re clearly telling me lies. I’ll go, if you really want me to go, but I don’t think you do. Give me a good reason, and I’ll take myself off, on my honour.’

‘You have no honour,’ Harry feels he should point out. The room is all of a sudden feeling very stuffy and close, and an unbidden and very much unwanted little voice in his head points out that it’s hours till Hermione gets home. _You've got time_.

‘Now then, just because our priorities don’t match up doesn’t mean I have no honour. You know me better than that, Potter.’ Malfoy smiles slyly. ‘I never did anything you didn’t want me to.’

‘How many times do I need to tell you to bugger off?’ Harry asks. ‘Most people take a hint when their messages aren’t returned.’

‘I’ve never been ‘most people’, Potter. And you still haven’t explained to me how you got that scar.’ Malfoy nods at Harry’s belly. ‘Don’t tell me some nasty criminal took it into their heads to use an Unforgivable on the sainted Harry Potter.’

‘Unforgivables don’t leave marks, you twit,’ Harry points out. Malfoy just rolls his eyes and points to his forehead. Harry unconsciously echoes the gesture, his fingers finding the edge of his first scar, and he grinds his teeth. ‘No, it wasn’t an Unforgivable,’ he says, as Malfoy stalks closer.

‘ _Sectumsempra_?’ Malfoy presses. He squeezes up against Harry, fingers questing beneath Harry’s clothes and ignoring his attempts to push him away. Malfoy’s expression is mostly one of curiosity, but there’s a set to his mouth that Harry would probably call anger, although he doubts if anyone else would notice it. Malfoy learnt his poker face from masters like his father and Snape, after all.

‘Does it matter?’ Harry asks, still trying to get Malfoy off him, although half of him would really like this to keep going. The addiction was always in the wrongness of the situation – Harry clearly has a perverse streak somewhere – and it can’t get much more wrong than this. Malfoy’s fingers are just this side of too cold, and he’s got Harry’s shirt pushed up now, out of his way. He hisses when he gets a look at the scar, whether in sympathy or professional admiration Harry can’t tell.

‘No, that’s not _Sectumsempra_ ,’ Malfoy muses. ‘Too neat, wrong colour.’ He’s mostly talking to himself, prodding the red, raised line over Harry’s abdomen with practised, tantalising fingers. ‘And well healed, so you’ve clearly gone for some help.’ There's a wry questioning tone to that.

Harry rolls his eyes, trying not to tremble. This isn’t being held, it’s been years since someone really held him, but physical contact feels good, reassuring, even like this. ‘Yeah well, my days of suicidal heroics are over,’ he says as bitingly as he can.

‘So you keep telling me,’ Malfoy says, straightening up. He leans right into Harry’s space, nose in his hair, lips against his ear. ‘But you never could resist a duel, could you?’ he adds, and trails his fingers over Harry’s shivering skin, his teeth over Harry’s earlobe. ‘If you actually want me to stop, you know what to say,’ he mutters, knowing damn well Harry’s never called him on it yet. Somewhere in Harry’s head he thinks it’s ridiculous to have a safeword when you get something out of being unsafe, but it’s there, just in case he ever wants a way out.

Biting Malfoy’s lip and moulding his hands to the curve of Malfoy’s arse, drawing him in tight, Harry realises that he still doesn’t.

They eventually sink onto the bed together, their clothes puddling around them, and Harry only manages to remember that he didn’t cast a Silencing Charm on the room when he hears the front door shut and Hermione’s distinctive footstep in the hallway, and Malfoy laughs, and moans darkly and theatrically and above all, _loudly_.

Harry doesn’t even think, just scrabbles blindly for his wand in the mess of his clothing (never far away, when they do this, just in case) and fires _Silencio_ at Malfoy as fast as he can.

He hears Hermione pause, but she doesn’t call his name, and she doesn’t knock, and Malfoy has one hand sliding up Harry’s thigh. When Harry turns to look at him, he’s laughing noiselessly behind the gag of magic, and his pupils are blown wide.

Harry doesn’t let himself think about why he Silenced Malfoy, and not the room.

***

Hermione has never had to worry about people thinking she’s stupid. She managed to harangue people out of that notion on her very first day in Muggle primary school, and never really let up on it. However, she’s quite used to people thinking she’s deaf and naïve.

She hopes Harry won’t be one of those people. She sits at the kitchen table, sipping at a cup of tea and shuffling idly through this morning’s _Prophet_ , waiting. Eventually she hears the distinct thunderclap noise of someone Disapparating, and she straightens up, tense. A moment later, Harry comes out of his room looking even more dishevelled than usual, but the grim determination on his face tells her that, at least, he’s not going to try to pretend nothing just happened.

No, he’s going to try a distinctly more Harry-Potter-esque tack instead, which is, broadly speaking, to meet the problem head on. Like a bulldozer.

‘I’ll shift back out tomorrow,’ he says, standing in front of her like she’s McGonagall and he’s been caught hexing Slytherins again.

‘Harry-‘

‘I shouldn’t have let it happen, and I swear, I’ll never let him back in this house again-‘

‘Harry!’

He regards her with stoicism. He thinks he’s about to get a bollocking. It’s tempting, but ...

‘It’s okay,’ she says at last, which is only broadly speaking the truth. She’s still horrified he’s sleeping with Malfoy, but, as she keeps telling herself, it’s his choice. They’re adults. Malfoy isn’t the enemy any more. She can’t think like that any more. ‘Just … cast a Silencing Charm next time, all right? And I’d quite like some notice if he’s going to be here.’ _So I can arrange not to be_ , she doesn’t add.

The war is done, but that doesn’t mean she has to take tea and scones with people who cast the Cruciatus curse at her.

‘I should go home anyway,’ Harry says, dropping into a chair and relaxing, now he knows he’s not about to get hexed, or given detention. ‘I’ve been here months. My flat probably reeks of stale air, and there’s probably mountains of Muggle post in the doorway-‘

‘You can stay, you know,’ Hermione counters. She’s been trying to work out a way to say this for ages now. ‘I could use a flatmate, and Ron loves having you here, and-‘

‘Hermione, why doesn’t Ron live here?’ Harry asks, uncharacteristically quietly.

Hermione bites her lip and looks away, and says, ‘You still haven’t told Malfoy, have you?’ She knows it’s a rubbish and very unfair diversionary tactic, but it works. Harry scowls and drops his gaze, choosing instead to examine the back of his hands. She knows the answer, anyway.

‘No.’

‘And you’re going to keep seeing him?’

Harry lets his head drop into his hands wearily. ‘Seeing him,’ he says, laughing a little bitterly. ‘Nice choice of words.’ He seems to pause, and think, before saying, ‘I don’t know. I don’t want to, until he turns up, and then …’

‘Suddenly you do?’

‘It’s stupid, Hermione. Nothing’s changed … I think I hate him, and I can’t see why I let him in, and then … I don’t know.’

‘He probably feels the same way, you know,’ Hermione tries. She wants to go over and hug him, but they need to actually talk about this, like adults.

Harry snorts. ‘Malfoy? He only wants one damn thing.’

‘When he stopped me in the street that time, he was worried. Harry, maybe you should tell him-‘

‘No.’

‘He’s got a right to know he’s got a son, Harry.’

‘ _Luna_ has a son. I’m not dropping her in it with a tit like Malfoy. I’m handling it.’

‘Surely-‘

‘I don’t trust him, alright?’ Harry cuts in, strained. ‘I don’t trust the bastard as far as I can throw him, and I’m not letting him in on something like this. He could ruin everything, for me, for you and Ron, for Luna, for little Sirius …’

‘But you sleep with him,’ Hermione points out bluntly, because there’s no other way to say it. She doesn't add, he cares about you. If Harry doesn't want to see it, her pointing it out won't help.

‘Yeah, and I can handle him. I can handle it, Hermione, but I’m not letting him into my life. Not like that.’ Harry stares blankly at his hands for a second. ‘I keep thinking the war’s over, but it creeps back in everywhere,’ he mutters.

‘Harry-‘

‘I’ll be out by Friday,’ Harry says, getting back to his feet. ‘And then you won’t have to worry about Malfoy any more, and you and Ron can have some space.’

She watches him leave the room, shoulders set grimly, and she knows what he means about the war.

***

 _Dearest Hermione_

 _You always have the right answers! Are you sure you aren't practising your Divination on me? (I am joking, I promise!) Yes I am to present on the Nurmengard records of prisoner's stories and Pensieve archives - there is I think a quite fascinating story to be told there of Grindelwald's systems and methods - he was a cruel man, but quite certain he knew what was best for countries and peoples. His ideas were quite frightening._

 _I look forward the most I think to hear the stories from your country, of how the resistance fought and organised themselves, but also of those close to Grindelwald in the early days, like his Aunt and of course the great Dumbledore. Of course we all know about the duel but again, it is the early days that are fascinating to me._

 _If it is possible for me to stay with you I would be honoured - accommodation is difficult to find for a conference like this, which will have so many people coming for it!_

 _I look forward of course to seeing Harry and Ron again_

 _Yours_

 _Viktor Krum_

***

‘Hey, look,’ Luna scoops little Sirius up and coos at him. ‘It’s Harry.’

Harry is standing, feeling very awkward, in the living room of her house. There is some kind of brightly-coloured playmat thing with a padded arch and swinging toys attached, and some cuddly toys too – a dragon and a Hippogriff are the two Harry spots before Luna deposits Sirius in his arms and goes to make some tea.

Judging from the smell, it’s probably Gurdyroots still. No-one seems to be able to talk her out of the damn things.

‘By the way,’ she says, leaning back through the kitchen entrance. ‘Uncle Harry? Or we can go with ‘Dad’, if you like.’

‘If he calls me Dad in public there’ll be hell to pay,’ Harry points out. ‘Uncle’s probably safer.’

‘Good point.' She comes back in with the cups of, yes, Gurdyroot infusion. Harry has become inured to the stuff, so he sips it stoically, one-handed, balancing little Sirius with the other arm.

It's funny, but now that he's effectively given the boy away, he never wants to stop holding him.

'Actually I meant to ask,' Luna says, sitting down on the sofa and indicating that Harry should do the same. 'I'm thinking of holding a little party this Saturday- would you like to come up and stay? I'll invite everyone, it'll be nice to have a get-together again.'

'Everyone' is a fairly narrow category, actually, and Harry knows who she means. She means the Order of the Phoenix and the DA - probably a few other people will come as well, but 'everyone' is 'everyone we care about', and that's a small category.

Harry saw the discreet little notice in the Daily Prophet a couple of weeks ago - 'To Miss Luna Lovegood, Sirius Xenophilius, a baby boy. In good health, eight and a half pounds' - so 'everyone' almost certainly knows now, and so does everyone else, even people they don't know or don't want to know.

So far no-one has passed comment on Harry's visits to Luna, any more than they passed comment when he went to stay with Hermione. It seems not so long ago that Harry saying hello to a girl in a corridor was enough to get him at least two inches in the Prophet, but apparently no longer.

Jiggling his- _Luna's_ son on his knee, Harry smiles. 'I'd love to,' he says. 'It'll be fun.'

It'll be a weekend with his lad. That's all that matters. He has just under a week more of hellishly boring sick-leave and then he's back to work, back to normality and his life and everything he's wanted for the past few months, and he's got a weekend with his lad to boot.

Life, for the first time in ages, is looking good. Harry ignores the insistence that normality and his life involve someone smirking at the back of his neck, they involve late night company, late night darkness, hands hard on his hipbones and a black taste in the back of his throat.

He doesn't need that to be happy, he tells himself. Even if he wants it.

***

Monday dawns cold, and as Hermione patters in slippers out to the kitchen, she realises she doesn't have to keep the noise down. She makes tea and toast, not wincing as the kettle clicks off or the toast pops, and shuffles back to her room to get dressed, and wonders what she's going to do with her evenings and her unbroken sleep from now on.

It’s strange to have the house to herself again, after having Harry and the baby here for so long, but it has its compensations. Like peace and quiet, Hermione tells herself as she brushes her hair. It’s the first day of their conference, which is exciting enough as it is, but it’s also the first time she’ll have seen Viktor since Bill and Fleur’s wedding. She’s missed him.

Aside from Ron and Harry, of course, Viktor is probably Hermione’s best friend. He understands the lure of intellect as well as she does, the joy in research, in that kind of a hunt, just as well as he understands the hunt for a Snitch. They’ve kept in touch via owl regularly, sometimes a little too regularly for Ron’s liking when they had some particularly interesting little puzzle to tease out. She sometimes gets owls at all hours of the day and night, although as she has repeatedly told her dear, overprotective boyfriend, it’s nothing he needs to worry about.

She arrives at the Ministry in time to find Viktor, looking tired and somewhat bewildered, in the lobby with his suitcase.

'Hermione,' he says gravely, smiling. She can’t help but smile back, though she squashes the leaping happiness and the urge to hug him.

'Come on, you can store your things in my office,' she says, and leads him to a lift, where she proceeds to babble for the entire time it takes to get to her floor, aware that he's letting her talk, and that his smile is a little bit exhausted and relieved.

'How was your journey?' she asks.

He shrugs, long and loose and untidy. 'Apparition is Apparition,' he says. 'Customs always have to make things difficult, though.'

'But you got through okay?'

'Of course.' His eyes were always deep-set, but they're almost sunken now. He's been up at nights, she thinks.

'When was the last time you slept?' she asks, resisting the urge to push him into a chair to rest, and to drag her fingers through his hair, which looks like it hasn't seen a brush in a while.

'It does not matter,' he says. 'Come, we have a conference to attend.'

'Right.' She turns, back to the door, but he catches her gently by the wrist. 'It's in one of the meeting rooms on the ground floor-'

'Hermione.' He draws her back around. There are crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes that she sees when he lifts the corresponding corners of his mouth. 'I am glad to see you again.'

She's glad to see him too. 'I think the plenary opens in ten minutes,' she says, a little higher-pitched than she would like, and gestures at the door. He lets her wrist go.

It seems like celebrity status is something Viktor, like Harry, will never get away from, no matter what he does. He's snaffled by Elphias Doge as soon as he walks through the door, with a cry of 'Viktor, my dear boy!', and he gives Hermione a little push to the small of her back, clearly indicating _save yourself while you still can!_ , so she makes her escape over to a back corner of the room.

'Morning, Hermione,' says Aberforth Dumbledore, in his usual gruff manner. 'Bit of international relations there?'

'He's an old friend,' she says, smiling and sitting down next to her collaborator. 'Don't you like him?'

Aberforth shrugs. 'He hasn't hexed me yet.'

She feels oddly defensive as she says, 'He's not going to.'

'You're probably right,' Aberforth says, and smiles ruefully. 'Time was, you couldn't have got me at a table with one of the bastards for love nor money. Durmstrang, you know? First Grindelwald, then bloody You-Know-Who ... if they didn't have the Dark Mark on their arms you could bet your bottom dollar they'd fought for the Greater Good.'

'They're not all like that,' Hermione points out. 'He's not the only Durmstrang graduate in the room. We have good research agreements in place, and we need to cooperate or we'll never find out anything about what happened.' The search for truth has to come first, over old grudges and old suspicions. It's a gamble, but you have to start to trust sooner or later.

'I know. Times have changed,' says Aberforth. 'Don't worry about me, young Hermione. I'm not going to drag things up.'

***

Viktor is an extremely polite houseguest. He doesn't get up until he hears Hermione moving around, he does the dishes with a flick of his wand, he says goodnight at respectable hours and pads off towards the bedroom Harry and little Sirius had occupied until recently.

His toothbrush in her bathroom gives Hermione pause for thought when it makes her smile on Tuesday morning.

Ron owls her over breakfast, and her gut twists.

 _Hi love,_

 _Doing anything tonight? I thought we could go out, just the two of us. Hope the conference is going well - bet you're blowing them away with your brains._

 _x Ron_

She _would_ , but ... She scribbles off a reply, hurriedly, at morning tea time.

 _Ron dear,_

 _Maybe another night? I can't just abandon Viktor, he'd be on his own. It wouldn't be fair._

 _The conference is going amazingly, I have about five feet of notes already, you wouldn't believe some of the speakers we've had. You should drop in for a day, it's brilliant._

 _Love you_

 _Hermione_

His reply turns up at lunchtime

 _All right then. Sounds like you're busy. Hope Krum is having fun._

She has to turn his note over to write on the back of it, caught without a single scrap of parchment that isn't covered in something vital or something interesting.

 _Come to dinner on Friday - it'll be nice._

He actually comes down to the meeting rooms for that one. He kisses her fondly on the jawline and says, 'All right, love.' She bats at him half-heartedly until he steps back, and then she hugs him properly.

'Having fun catching criminals?'

He laughs. 'Mostly filling in paperwork on the ones we've already caught. Harry's back Friday,' he says. 'Two reasons to look forward to it now.'

Doge has got up on a chair to inform everyone it's time to go back in for the afternoon sessions. She kisses his cheek.

'Love you, Hermione,' Ron says.

Viktor is waiting for her. She kisses Ron again, and then lets him go.

***

Ron decides on Wednesday that he's gone long enough without seeing his girlfriend, and that she can afford to take an hour off to eat some lunch. But when he gets down to the meeting rooms, yet again, she's sitting with Krum, heads together over some book, and he knows, he _knows_ the look he'll get if he interrupts her, so he leaves again.

Dawlish asks him jovially that day if he has a young lady. It's not the old coot's fault, Merlin knows - after being Confunded as many times as he was in the war, it's a miracle he can put his own underpants on - but ...

Pansy Parkinson gets in a lift with Ron that afternoon, and asks him if he knows his girlfriend (and he can almost hear the word 'Mudblood' dropped in before 'girlfriend', but it's probably just habit) is running around with Viktor Krum again. She can't say anything else, because they're not alone, but it leaves enough of an impression, and the Obliviator who joined them on the fourth floor then proceeds to talk Ron's ear off about Krum's spectacular catch in the Ireland/Bulgaria match, which Ron _saw_ , although he hasn't the heart to tell the man so and thus cut off his extensive blather about Krum's technique.

That night at the Cauldron, Neville slings an arm around Ron's shoulders and tells him bottoms-up, and that it'll all blow over, and he shouldn't let a girl make him so miserable.

But he's not. He knows miserable. He knows the feel of a Horcrux around his neck and he knows the feel of being far away from home and friends with nothing but a light in his pocket and a radio codeword in his head, and this isn't that.

On Thursday Ron sends an interdepartmental memo, asking Hermione if she wants to go for lunch, but she reminds him they're having dinner together tomorrow night, and that she's busy. The office copy of the _Daily Prophet_ has a sidebar devoted to the 7th Annual Congress on Historical Perspectives on War. Hermione and Krum, as former _Prophet_ rumour-mines, are named, and the gossip columnist has even managed to dredge up a few old stories, presumably because there's nothing of interest to the general wizarding public about any of the other conference delegates, who all appear to be somewhat past their prime, and interesting though it is to speculate about Aberforth and his goat-charming, that's still the only thing anyone knows of any scandal about the old bugger and even the _Prophet_ are getting bored with it.

 _Miss Hermione Granger and old flame Viktor Krum, former Seeker on the Bulgarian national Quidditch team, appear to be striking up their old -_

Ron puts the paper down, and sends another memo.

 _Can I see you? I miss you._

He doesn't care if it's unprofessional use of department resources.

 _I was in the middle of a talk, Ron_ , comes half an hour later, and it kind of says it all.

***

‘Good to have you back, Potter,’ says Dawlish on Harry’s first day back. ‘We missed you.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ replies Harry, grinning. ‘Sitting at home with only myself for company was starting to get boring.’

They put on a little welcome back lunch for him, and get him back up to speed with all the recent cases. It’s Friday, and everyone is mostly just counting the minutes until clocking-off time anyway.

The afternoon is spent on getting his paperwork back in order and then a few hours duelling practice with Ron, and it is incredibly good to be back.

‘Plans for the weekend?’ Ron asks, dodging a Full Body-Bind and firing back a rather neat silent Impediment Jinx. Harry sidesteps.

‘Heading over to Luna’s,’ he says. ‘It’s a nice cross-country flight and she says I can stay the weekend. Yourself? Isn't Hermione at some conference this week?'

‘Yeah - Historical Perspectives on War, or something. Krum's there.' Ron's face is a picture. 'Hermione’s had him over to stay the past week,’ Ron replies a tad glumly. ‘I've been avoiding the place, but tonight I have to go and be polite for an evening.’

‘He’s not that bad,’ Harry says, laughing. ‘Have a little sympathy – at least you can still ride a broom properly.’

‘I suppose. I just don’t like the way he looks at her,’

‘Oh, come off it. You have nothing to worry about,’ Harry says, casting Tarantallegra and finally scoring a hit while Ron’s distracted.

‘Yeah, well,’ jitters Ron, before managing the counter-curse and a lightning-fast Jelly-Legs, just messing around now. ‘You’d better be right.’

‘She’s your girlfriend,’ Harry shrugs, grinning. ‘But if you ask me, you’re barking up completely the wrong tree.’

***

Hermione feels awful that she hasn't had time for Ron all week, but he's never been this insistent on seeing her before, and she suspects it's because Viktor is here. But jealousy is ridiculous; she refuses to pander to Ron's insecurities - she'll continue on as normal, because she's not the one with the problem here. He's never objected to her having male friends before.

 _You were never actually interested in any of your other male friends, though_ , says a voice in the back of her mind.

 _I'm not interested in Viktor_ , is the obvious, defensive retort, but she knows that's not true, has never been true, though it’s been easily buried these years apart.

She has the dishes busily washing in the sink, and _bouef en croute_ in the oven, and she's waiting for Ron to arrive and Viktor to get back from the shops where he's picking up some cream for the trifle that she's been constructing. She sits down and pours herself a glass of wine.

 _Viktor would never, ever make a move on me, not while I'm with Ron_ , she points out to herself, and that is the truth, at least. She should feel comforted by that.

 _I love Ron_. Truth, again. _Viktor's just my friend_. She drinks the wine slowly. It's interesting, how facts and truth intertwine and distort, like mirrors. Because that's the truth - she loves Ron, and Viktor is _just_ her friend, but the former can be true, is true, will be true forever, and yet the latter is subject to change.

There. She's said it. Thought it, at least.

She pours herself another glass. When Viktor comes back with the cream in a plastic supermarket bag, she takes it without touching his hand. When Ron comes in, she lets him kiss her on the cheek only.

She has to _think_. It's hard to. The dinner party is stiff and formal and she has no idea how to make it less so; there are no topics of conversation to hand - Quidditch is sore for both of them, English magical law enforcement no more Viktor's area than history is Ron's, and their pool of mutual acquaintances not large enough to sustain chat for more time than it takes to eat the appetisers - so it ends up being her fielding two conversations, one with each of them, and eventually Ron's peters out, because what have they to say to each other that's new?

So they eat, and she and Viktor talk somewhat haltingly of the conference. They stop every few sentences, aware that the subject matter excludes Ron, but the sucking emptiness of silence is always awkward enough that Hermione will ask another question - _'What did you think of Dedalus's collection of Resistance-era letters?'_ or _'The Bagshot project is coming along well, don't you think? Archiving her library will be so useful for future work_ '.

Eventually it dawns on Hermione that Ron hasn't said a word in half an hour. Him putting his cutlery down alerts her - the clank of metal on porcelain, such a little noise, but it sounds oddly ominous.

'I'll just leave you two to it, shall I?' Ron says, a little too evenly.

'Pardon?' she asks, and winces at her own tone. It isn't even as if they've had a fight, but she feels like they have, somehow, in the spaces between the notes they've been passing the last week - they're bruised and delicate everywhere they used to connect.

'I'll leave you to it,' he repeats. He gets up. 'I'm not really contributing much, anyway.'

'Ron-'

He smiles slightly, shakes his head, and leaves the room. A second later, there's a _crack_ , and he's gone.

***

Luna doesn't have a spare bedroom, or rather she does, but Sirius is in it, so Harry gets a duvet and the couch. It's pretty comfy.

Sirius wakes twice in the night - twice, Harry bumps into Luna as they both make for the cot in their respective somnambulistic states. The first time, he holds his son while she goes for a bottle, until the boy's snuffling cries have calmed down against the warmth of Harry's skin. When she gets back, bottle in hand, Harry passes Sirius over to be fed.

'Thanks,' she says softly, and kisses him on the temple. She has to go up on tiptoe to do it, cradling Sirius carefully. He wakes a little more, protesting.

'No worries,' Harry says, and pads back to the couch.

The second time, it's the same pattern, but Luna just hands Harry the bottle this time.

'He wants you,' she says. 'We're still getting used to each other, him and me.'

After the feeding and the burping and the settling down again, Harry sits by Sirius's cot. He pillows his head on one crooked arm on the wooden railing, with the other arm dangling, until first Sirius and then he himself falls asleep, soothed by proximity.

***

Ron doesn't reply to any of Hermione's owls. She's fairly certain he went to his parents' place, because an owl she addresses to Ron's flat in Diagon Alley rather than to Ron himself gets a reply from Neville just saying that he isn't there.

She doesn't know what to do. There isn't a book about this, not really. Viktor is still staying with her, because she wasn't sure what to do - she can't throw a friend out, and he's only here till Monday anyway, and still, _still_ she thinks in a decent portion of her head, that Ron is overreacting and she will not gratify him with an emotional response, even though she knows there's faithfulness and faithfulness, more than one kind, and that she hasn't been _true_ to him, though she can't articulate how.

Viktor is clearly as undecided about the state of things as she is. He watches her, she notices, but he says barely anything on Saturday.

They don't go to Luna's party, even though she said she'd be there, and she'd bring Viktor as well. Ron will be there, you see, and the last thing she wants is a quarrel on a day like that. The last thing she wants is a quarrel in public. So she and Viktor read books quietly in her living room, make no eye-contact while they watch each other, and the space between them heaves with things she shouldn't say while the truth undergoes a strange metamorphosis.

***

Harry wakes up with a monster of a crick in his neck and his baby son gurgling up at him in apparent amusement. Rolling his head from side to side, he goes to find a bottle, and perhaps a clean nappy.

The rest of the morning is spent in a soft-edged, tired blur of making finger-food and jiggling little Sirius up and down, an activity that makes him shriek with delight. When people start arriving, though, Harry hands him over to Luna fairly smartly. Doesn't do to put ideas in people's heads, after all. Instead of sitting with Luna and the people who congregate around her to coo over the baby, he starts to wander. To mingle, which is the approved action at parties, isn't it?

‘Hello, Harry,’ says a soft, familiar voice, and Harry turns to find his ex-wife standing behind him.

In the background, Luna’s party continues on in full swing, but it fades away out of Harry’s hearing as he looks at Ginny. 'I wondered if you’d be here,’ she continues. ‘No-one’s seen you much since you got sick – I was worried.’

‘Bit of stomach trouble.’ Harry repeats the familiar lie a little hoarsely, as butterflies swarm in his gut. _She left you, remember?_ he tells himself. _Amicable split or not, she’s left you._

But he did, _does_ , love her, and although he knows now that the way he loved her was all wrong – too desperately, suffocatingly – he knows he scared her off, but it’s still love, it’s still there.

She looks good, beautiful as ever, but her face is sad. She nods at where Luna is sitting with her son (Harry is getting good at that phrase) and some of the other women. ‘He even looks a little like Sirius, don’t you think? Those blue eyes for a start.’

Harry remembers suddenly that Sirius was, to his eternal displeasure, a cousin of Malfoy’s. ‘I suppose,’ he says, and, ‘Babies all look the same to me.’

Ginny laughs. ‘You’re impossible,’ she says fondly. ‘Everyone’s been telling me how good you are with him.’

‘He’s a little charmer,’ Harry admits, realising he’s enjoying himself. He’s missed Ginny, missed just being her friend as well as everything else.

‘Do you ever wonder,’ Ginny says suddenly, then stops, blushing.

‘All the time,’ Harry mutters, good mood evaporating. He turns to go, feeling his belly-scar catch tight like the lump in his throat as he does so.

‘Harry, I didn’t mean-‘

He turns back, mostly because of the worried note in her voice. He doesn’t need yet another person needlessly worrying about him. ‘It was good to see you, Ginny,’ he says. ‘I’m glad you’ve been keeping well.’

Harry doesn’t see where she goes after that – he heads out to the garden, suddenly feeling the tiredness from the long baby-care-filled night he's not used to any more. But it doesn’t take long before Ron comes out and plonks himself down beside Harry. Luna lives in her dad’s old place, over the hill from the Burrow, so of course all the Weasleys are here.

‘It’s not her fault,’ Ron says after a while. ‘She wasn’t ready to be married. Not after all the, you know. Everything.’

‘I’ve heard it before,’ Harry points out. ‘I know, and I don’t blame her for anything.’

‘It’s not your fault either,’ Ron continues as if he hasn’t heard Harry. ‘I dunno if anyone’s actually told you that before.’

‘Only the clever bastards up at St Mungo’s,’ Harry says, a little blackly. ‘Apparently shell-shock isn’t much good for marriages.’

‘Shell-shock?’ Ron asks, and Harry remembers not everyone grew up with Uncle Vernon’s loud retellings of Grandad Dursley’s heroic war stories.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he says, instead of trying to explain. After all, whatever you call it, he’s hardly the only one who came out of the war a little more broken than he went in. The DA don’t talk about it, but they do subtly watch each other, like the Order did before them. It’s support, of a kind, from the only people they really trust any more. ‘Why aren’t you living with Hermione?’ he asks instead, because he might get an answer out of Ron. Hermione still isn’t talking on the subject.

Ron's face goes oddly blank, or controlled maybe, and he says, 'She never asked me to.'

‘She’s trying to talk me into moving in permanently.’

‘Better you than Krum,' Ron mutters.

Krum's leaving on Monday, isn't he? Harry recognises the shuttered look on Ron's face, though, and doesn't ask. Instead he says, 'I can’t. You know why I can’t. I can’t let him into her house again, it’s not fair on her.’

‘Ordinarily I’d say, well, stop seeing him then, but I have this funny feeling you’ll tell me you can’t do that either.’

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘Nothing ever has been with you,’ Ron points out in a tired voice. ‘I'd've thought that a choice between friends and enemies would have been simple, that’s all.’

‘He’s not the enemy. We’re not at school any more.’ Harry has to keep hammering that home. Enemy is a word he would like very much to forget.

‘But you don’t trust him. You won’t even tell him he’s a father, for Merlin’s sake.’

‘Would you trust him?’ Harry says nothing of the parenthood issue. As far as he’s concerned that one is dead and buried.

‘Never,’ Ron says, whiplash fast and sharp. ‘Never so long as I live. But then, I’m not like you, Harry. If I see someone I don’t trust, I avoid them. You let him up close. Do you want another dose of _Avada Kedavra_ one of these days? Because I wouldn't be surprised if that's what you get.’

‘You don’t understand-‘

‘No, I don’t.’ Ron gets up. Anyone else would have stormed off after an argument like that, but Ron and Harry have weathered worse. He claps Harry on the shoulder instead. ‘I don't understand either of- I mean.' He stops himself, then says, 'I wish I could, Harry, but I don’t understand.’ He walks off.

Harry goes home to his musty flat that night. He could probably have crashed on Hermione's couch, but she has Krum there, and he doesn't want to talk to anyone. However, on his way he stops at a Post Office.

 _My place. No questions,_ is all he writes on the note.

Malfoy doesn’t need to ask any, anyway.

In fact Malfoy doesn’t say a single word, just pulls Harry down to him, holds his gaze, and makes Harry feel every second of it, takes every accidental bruise Harry doles out without complaint, makes sure Harry hears every single moan, because honesty is brutal and Malfoy never pulls a punch. If Harry is too sloppy, if Harry has this little control over himself, Malfoy doesn't care, but Malfoy never lets Harry have any illusions about what he's doing.

Every time Harry tries to close his eyes, go somewhere else, Malfoy brings him back to earth with a grind or a bite. ‘I don’t care who you’d rather I was,’ he growls. ‘I’m the one who’s here with you right now. Like it or lump it, Potter.’

It's not escapism. It's realism. _This is what you are, this is what you want, this, this, this,_ with every twist of his hips, and he burns with the shame of not being the white knight everyone thinks he is, the good husband and brilliant father everyone expected him to be, but he can't fight it - he can't fight the fact that he grew up bullied and was educated in secrecy and perversity, that when he wants comfort he seeks some kind of cramped, dark understair cupboard of the soul, when he wants comfort he seeks a _fight_.

Malfoy will give him a fight, and will hold him the same way the cupboard did, wedged in between long-forgotten things that don't concern Harry, don't belong to him, and that he won't poke around in. It's not comfortable, but it's a space no-one else wants or has even bothered to find, and Harry's life has been largely spent in places like that - cupboards and spare bedrooms, Chambers of Secrets and Rooms of Requirement.

' _Potter_ ,' Malfoy snarls, digging his fingernails in. 'Come back to me, Potter.'

Harry does as he's told. He has nowhere _else_ to go back to, after all.

***

Ron goes home to the Burrow after Luna's party, without really answering his mother's questions as to why. She doesn't push him - she just cautions him not to disturb George.

But later that evening, he decides moping is not his style, and hugs his mum, and leaves. Harry isn't at home, or at least, he's not answering when Ron knocks. He might be at Luna's, he might be somewhere else Ron doesn't particularly want to speculate on, but wherever he is, he's not at home.

Ron doesn't go back to Luna's. Lovely though Luna is, he doesn't want to talk to anyone female right now. He wants his mates and to defiantly not talk about things and to neck an awful lot of Firewhiskey. He wants nothing more, in fact, than to fall off a bar-stool somewhere into blissful oblivion and wake up tucked into his bed and to have all of this not have happened. So he goes home to the flat, to try and find Neville, but he isn't in.

Ron wanders around the flat, poking around as if Neville is going to spring out from behind the curtains, thinking. Thinking about how he wants Neville to be here, because there's strength in numbers, and this is home, and Neville is his flatmate, his ally. Ron grew up knowing his parents were united, and that they love each other as much as they love him and all his siblings, and they are solid, always solid. They fought together the first time You-Know-Who arose, and it made them stronger. They were allies as well as a married couple.

In his bedroom, Ron plonks himself down on his bed, kicking his heels a bit. There's not much of Hermione in here - if he wanted to see her, he'd go and, well, see her. At her house. The only thing that he thinks of as hers is something she's never even seen before - he pulls open his bedside cabinet to fish out the ring-box.

He thought he had the same kind of alliance and love with Hermione that his parents had. He'd thought too, at first, that Harry had that with Ginny; that hammered-out certainty that you can rely on each other. But Ginny and Harry weren't the same as Ron's mum and dad - they grew so close they choked each other. Ron remembers Harry sleeping in the office, Ginny going home at weekends, because they wanted to be together but every time they were it seemed to turn into a shouting match, until one day neither of them could take it any more, and Harry came home to find Ginny packing a suitcase.

He remembers asking Hermione if she could understand it. She looked at him pityingly, and said she supposed she could.

'They're too alike,' she said, hugging him. 'They need space.'

'Not like us,' he'd murmured into her hair.

'No, not like us.'

But it turned out that they weren't like Ron's parents either. He twists Hermione's ring between his fingers, watching the gold flash against his skin.

Ron supposes Malfoy gives Harry plenty of space - it's not like he hangs around much. But what else does he give Harry? What else do you need in a relationship? If he's not around, how can he give Harry support, and vice versa? Do they need that from each other? Harry has always been self-sufficient; he likes to have his friends around, he loves his friends, but when he's pressed, Ron knows from experience, Harry will push everyone else away. So maybe the kind of support, the kind of _alliance_ Ron thought was essential isn't.

Harry doesn't even like Malfoy, never did. Said he never would. Do you have to like someone to sleep with them? Do you have to trust them? Do you have to do any of that to love them?

More importantly, Ron has never in his life known anyone as stubborn as Harry, as keen to cling to the things he thinks he knows in the face of evidence and truth and likelihood. So Harry saying he doesn't trust Malfoy might not mean anything more than that Harry hasn't bothered to actually think about it. That would be sodding typical, actually.

Harry must get something from this. Harry must need something Malfoy can give him. And Malfoy ...

And there's where it gets hard, for Ron, because he is a straightforward kind of bloke, and Malfoy has always been the enemy. But Malfoy is the, the _other_ father of Harry's child, and in Ron's straightforward world, that gives him rights. And Ron can see why he would want to exercise them. And he hasn't actually done anything bad yet, as far as Ron knows. Maybe it's time to give him the benefit of the doubt?

Ron thinks maybe he's been as stupid as Harry. Because maybe whatever Harry gets from Malfoy is what Hermione wants from Krum, isn't getting from Ron. Maybe it's something Ron doesn't understand. And maybe, he thinks, he doesn't _want_ to understand - he gave all he could give, and apparently it wasn't good enough. So that's that.

Ron's sick of the inside of his head. He puts the ring back in its box and shoves it in his pocket, then Apparates to the Leaky Cauldron, to see Neville.

'All right there, young Ron,' says Tom. He gets down a glass and makes for the tap. 'The usual?' he asks as he starts pulling.

'Is Neville in?' Ron asks, twisting around to see. He's not in their usual spot.

'No, haven't seen him all evening,' Tom says. 'Thought something was up, neither of you coming in.'

'Damn it,' Ron says. He's vaguely aware as he walks away of Tom holding a half-full pint glass and saying 'I'll put it on your tab, then,' but he doesn't particularly care.

If Neville's not at home and not in the pub, he must be at work. St Mungo's isn't too far, and Ron could use the exercise, so he sets off.

He feels weightless, anchorless, like his tethers are broken. It's uncomfortable - he feels like he should be angry and crying, but he just keeps thinking that she'll be happier with Krum. It's easy to know that - it's less easy to know how he feels, because he's been a 'we' with her so long. He supposes he feels tired.

He stretches his legs out with each stride, keeps walking. See Neville. Have a drink. Get the routine ticking over, reset the clockwork of his life. Go to bed, all springs wound, and leave it till tomorrow to find out if everything is ticking as it should be. In his pocket, his fingers lock around the little box with Hermione's ring in it.

***

It's nighttime, and Malfoy is jammed snug up against Harry on Harry's musty, unaired bed. If he's made anything of the fact that he's still here, unprecedented hours after his arrival, he's saying nothing. He has other things on his mind, clearly, with one hand scraping blunt fingernails up Harry's inner thigh as the other rubs Harry's neck in a way Harry will refuse to admit is soothing. 'So what exactly, Potter, are you trying to forget about?' Malfoy asks. Harry freezes.

The emptiness of his flat, after Luna's house, is why Harry sent the owl. He had a reason, damn it, a good reason, but now all he can think of is Ron's suspicions.

 _'Do you want another dose of_ Avada Kedavra _one of these days? Because I wouldn't be surprised if that's what you get.'_

Harry is in this far, far over his head.

Malfoy's hands are still stroking Harry, and Harry's hips start to move of their own accord. 'Nothing,' he says, shoving himself back against the insistent length of Malfoy behind him. 'I've just got excess energy to burn, I suppose.' He tries for careless and aroused, but suspects he only gets halfway.

'Hmmm,' is Malfoy's response. He bites none-too-gently at the nape of Harry's neck, thinking. 'Up for something new?' he asks after a little while.

Despite himself, Harry feels a prickle of interest. Anything to take his mind off domesticity. 'Depends,' he says diffidently.

'You know what to say if you don't like it,' Malfoy points out. His hand shifts from Harry's thigh to a place definitely calculated to distract, and Harry leans into it. Malfoy's other hand reaches for his wand, and he binds Harry's wrists. So far, so normal.

'You said new, Malfoy,' Harry points out.

'Oh, this is new.' There is a dark grin in Malfoy's tone. 'Good, too. Very ... intimate.' He chuckles, and runs his tongue along the shell of Harry's ear. 'I'm going to find out where your attention has been lately.'

Too late, Harry realises what Malfoy's about to do, feels the familiar jolt of someone else's consciousness against his own, and forces down the scream and the flashbacks of snakes and blood and laughter that go with that sensation. He lashes out with his feet, struggles to a sitting position. 'Whizzbee, Whizzbee, _Fizzing fucking Whizzbee_ ,' he chants desperately, and the horror-grasp of Legilimency leaves him. There is a thud as Malfoy falls to the floor, but Harry is too busy trying to remember, and then using, the counterspell to the cuffs to do anything about it.

Malfoy gets to his feet, white and shaking. 'You bastard,' he rasps, and he looks as furious as Harry has ever seen him.

'You were in my _head_ , Malfoy, that's out of order,' Harry replies shakily.

'I don't remember being told that. I don't remember _anything_ about no-go areas in the bedroom, but that's beside the point. I stopped when you said your stupid word, anyway.' Malfoy grabs his wand once more. Harry stumbles back and frantically starts scrabbling in the clothes on the floor for his own. 'But my _son_ , Potter-'

' _My_ son, you mean,' Harry says, grabbing his wand thankfully.

'Oh, so there are multiple candidates for paternity?' Malfoy snarls. 'Don't lie to me.'

Harry can feel Malfoy's mind seeking entrance again, angry rather than lascivious this time, and he tries desperately to bat it away, his mediocre Occlumency against a Legilimens trained by Snape and the Dark Lord himself ... 'Get _out_ , Malfoy!'

'I want the truth, you self-righteous son of a bitch.' Malfoy has managed to grab his robes, and more importantly, his wand.

'The truth is that he's gone,' Harry says desperately. 'Or didn't you see that? He's registered under someone else's name. In the eyes of the law, _neither_ of us has a son-'

'Lovegood,' Malfoy breathes, his eyes narrowing.

'No-' But it's too late. Magic cracks like lightning, and Malfoy is gone.

***

There is a gentle tap at Hermione's bedroom door. She isn't asleep. She hasn't been able to drop off - her thoughts won't stop circling, like water around a plughole - you can change the direction with your hands if you're determined enough, but you can't stop the motion itself until the water's gone or the hole is stopped up. She squints up at the Muggle clock on the wall. Just past two.

She slides out of bed before the knock can come again. Crookshanks’ eyes gleam in the moonlight from the open window as she pads softly over to the door and opens it slowly, carefully.

'Viktor,' she says quietly. 'It's two in the morning.' It isn't a reprimand.

'I know. I cannot sleep.' He looks humble, almost apologetic, but his eyes seek hers out, and she can’t tear her gaze from his.

'Neither can I,' she admits, hand still on the door handle.

'I wanted to talk with you.'

She opens the door wider and gestures at her room. 'Come in,' she offers, meaning they can sit on her bed and talk, where it's comfy and warm. Maybe conversation will help her drift off.

He colours. 'I will not- It would not be right,' he says stiltedly. 'Ron would not approve.'

'I'm not ... I don't know if that matters any more.' She swallows hard, their eyes still locked. She’s not even sure, right now, if she cares whether it matters.

'Still, it is not right.'

She sighs, and pulls her dressing gown on over her nightie. 'Come on, then,' she says, and takes him through to the living room, wondering how he can be so - so _honourable_.

She perches on her favourite armchair, and lights the fire with a flick of her wand. Viktor’s eyes are still on her, but for some reason she can’t look, and stares instead at the flames as he takes a seat opposite her.

The silence is comforting, though it isn’t comfortable. There’s a tension between them, brimming with things unsaid, things she doesn’t know how to say, or if she should say. Things that scare her.

Viktor breaks the silence at last. ‘He is no longer your boyfriend then?’

'I don't know,' she says honestly. 'I think I've hurt him, but I don't know how.'

'You write to me,' Viktor says, with a wry smile. He twists his fingers together - strong fingers, she notes, and with quill callouses instead of broomstick ones these days. 'You spend the week with me, when he wishes to see you.' His mouth twists for a second, and he looks at his lap. 'I know how you have hurt him. You know too.'

'But it doesn't make sense,' she says, aware that she sounds like she’s whining. She pulls her dressing gown closer. 'We're not ... there's nothing going on.'

'Perhaps not.’ Viktor looks up again, and again she can’t help but hold his gaze. ‘But there is something between us. Ron knows it.' He pauses a moment, contemplating her, and she shivers, wondering what it is that he sees. 'He knows how long I have hoped.'

She can't say she's hoped too, because she hasn't, not exactly. She's just known, in a vague way. But she's been happy with what she has. What she _had_. Happy to leave things as they were. She never wanted anyone to get hurt, and this - whatever it is, whatever Viktor hopes - there’s always been too much potential for people to get hurt.

'I should go to bed,' is what she says instead, surprising herself with how steady her voice comes out. 'Goodnight, Viktor.'

He watches her leave, and she can feel his eyes still on her as she closes the door behind her without looking back.

She still can't sleep, but lying there alone, she feels a little more honest, at least.

***

When Malfoy's gone, it takes Harry exactly thirty seconds' dithering before he follows suit, the _crack_ of his own Apparition echoing in his ears.

He lands, breathing hard and with his clothes in disarray, in Luna's living room. It's dark and quiet, but there's a light down the hallway.

'Hello?' Luna calls, sounding surprised. Well, why wouldn't she be, she's not really likely to be expecting visitors at arse o'clock in the morning. She pads out into the living room, with little Sirius swaddled in a blanket in her arms. She's holding a bottle - late night feed. Harry, who'd pictured a scene of child-snatching horror, sags with relief.

He goes to take his - her - _his_ son, and Luna lets him, sliding the bundle into Harry's grasp. He cradles the little boy against his chest and tries to settle his heartrate. It _pounds_ , painful in his chest, like the kick of a Hippogriff, every time he thinks of Malfoy getting here first, or coming here at all. Little Sirius accepts it for a second, but he can see the bottle, and he's hungry. He starts to wail.

'What's wrong?' Luna asks after a moment, coming and picking Sirius up out of Harry's arms (his muscles twitch almost involuntarily, wanting to hold the kid closer, but he lets her take him) so that she can start to feed him. Watching his (her, damn it. Or their. He'll accept their) son gulp his milk, he explains. It takes a long time, or at least, long enough to empty a bottle, to burp, to put the baby down on his mat, and then Luna is folding her arms around Harry instead.

'It's okay,' she says, rocking him a little, which feels ridiculous but actually really, really good. 'It's okay. If he does come, Harry, I can defend us. He's my son too,' she adds, and Harry pulls back to look her in the eye.

She means it.

'I know,' Harry says. 'I know.'

But he looks past her at the little scrap of human gurgling on his playmat, and realises he means it when he says _their_ son. Realises he can't walk away like he thought he could.

Luna makes up the couch again, without even asking.

***

Neville's working late this evening - so late that it's early tomorrow morning already - called in for an emergency poisoning case and staying to finish the interminable paperwork that goes with things like that (bezoars don't just grow on trees, he's always being reminded, as if they weren't reusable after a quick wash), when Parvati Patil, who is on duty as admin nurse, pokes her head round the door.

'Neville,' she says, 'You're Harry Potter's primary, aren't you?'

'Yes,' Neville replies, looking back at his parchment forms. 'If it's the _Prophet_ again, Parvati, tell them that for the last time, Grumbling Gastritis doesn't warrant even a Page Five opinion column, and that I'd take it kindly if they'd bugger off.'

'It's not the _Prophet_ ,' she says. Neville looks up again. Her expression is puzzled. 'It's Draco Malfoy, says he wants to speak to whoever's looking after Harry.'

'Well, tell him a Healer's not allowed to speak about other patients' cases.' Neville rolls his eyes. 'Bloody Malfoys-'

'He says, it's about his son,' she adds, and Neville's blood runs cold.

'Malfoy's son? Or Harry's son?' he manages to ask. 'Because if he thinks Harry's got a son, he needs his head examined.'

'Patil, get out of my way,' Malfoy drawls from the corridor, out of Neville's sightlines. 'Longbottom and I have a private matter to discuss.'

'I'm not talking to you about anything pertaining to Harry Potter,' Neville snaps. 'Nurse Patil, if this gentleman doesn't leave the premises immediately, hex him and call security.'

'Unwise, Longbottom,' Malfoy says, but he does leave when Parvati pulls at his arm. He jerks himself free and strides out ahead of her. She goes to follow him but Neville shakes his head. He has to find Harry, which means he has to leave the building, so he might as well follow Malfoy himself.

'I don't suppose-' Malfoy says, but Neville pulls his wand.

'Just go,' he says. 'I'm legally not allowed to talk to you. So go, before I change my mind about letting you walk out of here.' It sounds a lot more gung-ho than he feels - his heart is pounding. He hasn't drawn a wand on another human since the war. He hasn't let himself. There are things Neville did during the war that he is not proud of, and he did them because he had to, but he doesn't want to find out if he can do them again.

Malfoy meets his eyes. 'And they say Slytherins are suspicious,' he says. 'You know Potter has a son. You know he can't be the only parent. _Think_ , Longbottom. Why else would I know?'

'I don't know, and I don't care,' Neville retorts. His breath is coming wobbly in his chest, but his wand-hand is steady. That scares him. 'And it doesn't matter. There are confidentiality laws, Malfoy. If you think you have a right to know something, take it up with Harry. Now, get out of this hospital.'

Malfoy stares a minute longer, and then leaves, cloak swirling around him as he goes through the door. Neville doesn't lower his wand until Malfoy's out of sight. Merlin, he needs a drink.

He's walking to the door, not sure where he's going but ready to look anywhere, when Ron strides in, looking knackered.

'Malfoy?' he asks.

'Asking about Harry,' Neville says. Ron's eyes narrow.

'You weren't in the Cauldron,' he says. 'And you weren't at home, so I guessed you'd be here.'

Which rather begs the question of where Ron himself has been, given the Cauldron closes at midnight and it's currently - Neville glances at his watch - nearly four am. But that's not important at this second. 'You were right. C'mon, we have to find Harry-'

'I broke up with Hermione.'

Neville stops for a second. Ron's eyes aren't red, he doesn't smell drunk. 'Krum?'

'Yeah. And no.' Ron shrugs. 'You said we need to find Harry? He's not at home. I bet he's at Luna's. Come on.' He barely waits for a nod from Neville, just Apparates.

Parvati followed Nevile down to the lobby - she grabs his arm before he can follow Ron. 'Don't do anything stupid,' she says. 'I know it's Malfoy, but, Neville, please, don't do anything stupid.' She bites her lip, and then adds, 'Is Ron-'

'He'll be fine.' Ron is hurting somewhere, but one thing Neville learnt in the war is, if you're hurt, but you can keep moving, you keep moving. The only wounds you worry about are the ones you can prevent.

***

Sleep is a lost cause. Hermione decides to get up and make herself a mug of cocoa, in the hopes that it will help. She tiptoes past the spare room and out into the kitchen.

She really thinks she's handling this whole situation in a particularly rational, grown-up way, right up until she finds Ron's mug in the cupboard. Whereupon she starts crying.

'Hermione?' asks Viktor. She whirls around, wondering how long he's been there and trying to dash the tears from her face.

'Sorry, I didn't realise you were - would you like some cocoa?' she asks, aware that her voice is wobbling and squeaking. He rolls his eyes fondly and pulls her into his arms, enveloping her.

'Why do you always pretend?' he asks warmly into her hair. 'It is natural to be upset.' She says nothing, just buries her face in his flannel-clad shoulder and tries not to get tears and snot and what have you all over it. He rocks her a little. 'You are allowed, I swear. You are allowed to be sad.'

'I just try to be sensible about things,' she hiccups. 'I never wanted anyone to get hurt.'

'And so you have hurt yourself,' he points out. He pulls back a little, holds her so that he can see her face. 'And you have hurt Ron. You have even hurt me, a little, because I have always hoped, and never could I get a straight answer from you.'

She knows it's the truth, and she appreciates that he tells it to her, but it cuts, and it makes her cry more, the tears stinging. He wraps her up in his embrace again, rocking and shushing until her tears dry.

'Always you are honest, in your work and your letters, and to other people, but you could not be honest with yourself. But now it is done. We can go on from here, can we not?'

She slowly unpeels her face from the damp patch over his heart, and looks up. Viktor has been patient, and Ron was honest, and now, she thinks, it's up to her to be brave. So she leans up, and puts one hand to the back of his neck, and kisses him.

He lets her. More than lets her, he makes a noise low in his throat, and opens up for her, but he won't take hold - he lets her steer it. She's just considering steering it out of the kitchen, perhaps to somewhere a little more comfortable, when there's an urgent rapping at the window.

It seems unfair that when her attention is finally focused on something that isn't her owl-post, it's an owl that interrupts her. She tries to ignore it, but Viktor steps away just a little, and opens the window.

The owl comes in and brings a rush of cold night-air with it. That doesn't induce nearly so much of a shiver, though, as the sight of Luna's handwriting on the envelope does.

Viktor lets her open the letter, lets her read out Luna's worried request for her help ( _their_ help - Luna addressed the note to Ron as well. That's going to be an interesting explanation), and takes her hand.

'I will come too,' he says firmly, and then kisses her again.

It's probably telling that this distracts her from replying to Luna's owl for a good ten minutes.

***

When Neville and Ron arrive at Luna's place, Harry's there too, which Neville is relieved but not surprised about. He's holding little Sirius protectively, and the baby starts to cry, presumably from the loud, unexpected noise of Neville's Apparition or the fact that this is not exactly a normal time for a baby to be up at. Luna is nowhere to be seen, but the smell of Gurdyroot infusion suggests she's making soothing beverages for the long-suffering masses. It's now so late at night that it's nearly morning.

'Malfoy?' Neville asks, looking at Harry. 'Harry, really?'

Harry blanches. 'It doesn't matter,' he says. 'It doesn't- how do you know?'

'He came to St Mungo's. He asked about _his son_ , Harry.'

'He's got no legal rights,' Harry says. 'What did you tell him?' He tightens his arms about Sirius defensively. 'Neville-'

'Nothing, of course. But Harry-'

'He'll come here,' Ron breaks in. He looks around the room, and then takes a deep breath. 'And I don't blame him. I told you, Harry. I told you, he'll want to know he's got a son. He's got a _right_ to know.'

'He's got no right,' Harry growls. 'He doesn't deserve-'

'Why not, Harry? What's he done to not deserve to know he has a son?' Harry glares. Ron shrugs. 'You must have trusted him enough to sleep with him, right?'

'That's not the same.'

'Did he hurt you?'

'It's none of your business,' Harry says, and his voice says, that's final. Neville knows Ron won't argue past it. As it is, Harry and Ron stare each other down for another moment or two before Ron shrugs again.

Luna comes back into the room, bearing a tray of steaming mugs, and a slip of parchment. She sets them down and takes Sirius from Harry, jiggling him. 'Hermione's replied to my owl,' she says. 'Ron, why doesn't she know where you are?'

Ron makes a face. 'I- she- we may have broken up,' he says. He holds up a hand before anyone can say anything. 'Just leave it, please? She's ... got Krum, and I'm. I'm fine, okay? Let's deal with this first.'

'Ah,' says Luna. 'They're sort of on their way,' she adds, just as Hermione and Krum appear with a _crack_ in the middle of her living room floor.

Hermione looks like she's been crying. Krum, as always, is glowering. Ron turns away, but Hermione goes straight to Harry when she steadies.

'We're here,' she says, in that business voice of hers. 'What's the plan?'

***

Ron hates how familiar this moment is, and how comforted he is by it at the same time. Standing with his mates, united against ... something. He's not even sure what they're proposing, because this is insane. This isn't the war. Malfoy isn't going to come in and fling Unforgivables every which way. But at the same time, he's a threat of some kind, or he feels like one; a threat to Harry anyway, and this is the way they deal with threats.

Ron just ... Ron just can't do this any more. He's tired. He'd walked for hours, trying to clear his head, and it hadn't worked, so he'd found Neville, and then this had all started. He wants sleep, and he wants a drink, and he wants normality. Instead, he has a wand in his hand and a spinning, sick feeling in his gut like he's going to a fight. And the strange thing is, part of him thinks this _is_ normality.

'He's one ex-Death Eater,' Neville points out, and his voice wobbles very slightly but his hand is curled tight around the wand poking out of his pocket, determinedly. 'Any one of us could take him, Harry, don't worry about it.'

'I"m pretty sure he can't have Sirius taken away,' Hermione says. Her eyes are bright, with dark rings around them like she's been up late, like she's been crying. Ron knows how she gets. Krum is standing behind her and he puts a steadying hand on the small of her back, and Ron doesn't want to see them like that, but Hermione meets his eyes with a watery smile, and he can't turn away from her. She's still his friend. 'But I'm not leaving you here to find out if he'll try,' she adds. Harry nods at her.

'I will stay, also,' Krum says in his deep voice. 'I do not trust the Malfoys, any of them.' Bit rich, a Durmstrang boy slagging off Slytherins, Ron almost thinks, but he stops himself. That's not right any more. Maybe it was never right, thinking like that.

Luna walks over to Harry and gently lifts Sirius out of his arms. She jiggles the boy gently and says 'Still recruiting, eh Harry?' She smiles a little lopsidedly. 'One more for the DA here, d'you reckon?

'Luna, I want you to take Sirius, and go,' Harry says. 'Hermione, you and-'

'We're not leaving you, Harry,' Hermione says, rolling her eyes. 'When are you going to learn?'

'But-'

'He's my kid too,' Ron says, a little abruptly. When everyone turns to look at him, he shrugs. 'I swear, I changed more nappies than you and Hermione put together,' he points out. 'Might not be _mine_ mine, but I reckon I've earned the right to be Uncle Ron, right?' It's why Ron's here, after all. Because this ... whatever this is, this is some kind of family, and there's nothing more precious than that.

If a family is the people you love, does it matter how you come by it, as long as you have it? And isn't this just as strong as his mum and dad have, isn't this just as close as him and his brothers and Ginny? Haven't they held out together through everything and come out solid?

'Yeah,' Harry says. He straightens up, a new gleam in his eye. 'Yeah.'

There's a knock at the door. Then the bell rings.

'I suppose I should get that,' Harry says, and he sounds casual, but Ron knows better. He's wondering, like they're all wondering, is this a trap?

'Go on, mate,' Ron says. 'You know we're not going anywhere,' he adds, and realises as he says it that that, that _thing_ he was waiting for with Hermione has happened under his nose, bigger and stronger than he'd thought, while he wasn't watching.

He steps out of Harry's way, back against the wall, and his hand bangs against the box in his pocket. He makes a face - it surprised him.

'Ron?' Hermione says. He hadn't even noticed he'd moved next to her. 'Are you all right?'

Ron wants to take her hand, but it's the same as the way he wants to follow Harry out to the front door - habit, and solidarity. And friendship, or family, or that weird combination of the two.

'I'm fine,' he says. On an impulse, he adds, 'Here, I've got something for you,' and he does take her hand, to drop the ring-box in it. Off her puzzled look, he says, 'I got it for you years ago, you know?'

'Oh, Ron,' she starts, looking like she's about to burst into tears. 'You mustn't -'

'I'm not trying to - please just take it,' he pleads. 'I want you to have it. To remember me.'

'You talk like you are going to die,' rumbles Krum from over Hermione's shoulder. 'Are you that angry with us?'

These foreigners are so bloody melodramatic. 'I'm not angry,' Ron says. 'I'm not, I'm just.' He stares at Hermione, hoping she feels the same way he does. 'You were my friend before we were anything else, Hermione, and we've always got over our fights before. Just take the damn ring.'

Hermione is actually crying now, but there's a shaky smile underneath the tears. Krum reaches around and grabs the box before she drops it. He puts it in her pocket.

'And you and I?' Krum asks. 'Believe me, I never meant for this to happen.' He shrugs, and adds, 'Or at least, not this way.'

Ron should probably punch Krum. A big, possessive part of him really does want to. But the bigger part of him just wants to let things lie, at least for now. 'Give it time,' he says, and instead of punching Krum, he holds out a hand to shake.

***

It appears that it's not a trap, unless it's the most complicated and subtle one ever devised. It's actually almost comical, answering the door to a sullen Malfoy, and letting him in because somehow it seems safer to have him where they can see him rather than shutting him outside in the dark and waiting for him to, just for example, set the house on fire. And then they're all standing together in Luna's living room, and it's no longer comical, it's _bizarre_ , bizarre and threatening.

Malfoy eyes Harry, then Luna, Neville, Hermione, Krum and Ron, pointedly. 'Do I have to do this in front of an audience?' he asks.

'Either you say your piece in front of them, or you don't say it at all, Malfoy.'

'I'm warning you, Potter-'

'If you can say it to me, you can say it to them.' Harry grits his teeth, knows Malfoy has more than enough material to make this nasty, to make this hurt. To make his friends turn from him-

'Very well,' Malfoy says, and sighs. He fiddles with his robes with his free hand, but his elegant dueller's grip on his wand doesn't waver. 'All right, Potter. You asked.'

He stops again. Harry is just about _grinding_ his teeth in frustration now. Why won't he just talk, if he's so keen on it?

The moments stretch out. 'I don't know what you thought we were doing,' Malfoy says at last. 'I have absolutely no idea. You never said, and, more fool me, I never asked. But I thought it was something you wanted. I thought _I_ was something you wanted.'

He laughs, or at least he grunts in a harsh, amused way, as if he's just seeing the joke. 'I thought you understood, you see, what it's like to lose everyone you care about, what it's like to be told to do things you don't understand or like, and what it's like to be dropped afterwards. I thought we understood each other, Potter.'

Malfoy's eyes are very very blue, under their pale lashes, when he looks at Harry. Harry can't meet them for long.

Dropping his gaze, Harry can see movement out of the corner of his eye. Against his better judgement, he turns his head just long enough to see his friends edging out of the door, into the kitchen, Luna in the lead with little Sirius. Ron is the last to leave, although he has to gently shove Hermione into going before him. She gives Harry a sad little smile before she leaves - Ron gives him a tiny, ironic salute; clearly saying 'Your move, mate.'

'I see you called in the cavalry,' Malfoy says, with a bitter twist to his smile. He leans back against the wall. 'Again, I have no idea what you thought I was going to do.'

'Better safe than sorry,' Harry replies warily.

'Can't a man see his son?'

'He can if he asks.'

'And the welcome I've just got tells me _so_ eloquently that I'd be welcomed with open arms,' Malfoy says sardonically.

'And you seriously thought this would work _better_?' Harry asks.

They glare at each other for another moment. Harry looks away again. Malfoy snorts. 'All right, so perhaps I've been stupid,' he says, stuffing his wand back into his pocket. Harry twitches, expecting a trick, and Malfoy's hand clamps around his wrist, gentle but tight. 'I'm not the only one, though,' he mutters. 'For Merlin's sake, Potter, why do you fight me so hard?'

'I don't-'

'Yes. You do.'

Harry thinks about this for a second, then puts his own wand back into his pocket. 'What- how should we ...' he starts, and then grimaces. 'Okay, what do you want, then?' he tries again, knowing he sounds blunt.

Malfoy looks at him searchingly for a moment. 'Not much,' he says finally. 'I was fairly happy, actually, until it turned out you'd been lying to me.'

'I wasn't-'

'Merlin's balls, what is it going to take to get you to stop being so defensive?' Malfoy rolls his eyes, and lets Harry's wrist go. He leans against a chair, clearly sorting out what he's about to say. 'I appreciate that we were never friends. I know that you have a rather ... black and white ... view of the world. And this whole arrangement may have confused that -' Harry opens his mouth to argue with that, but Malfoy won't let him get a word in '- but I don't sleep with you because I hate you, Potter. And I sincerely hope that isn't your motivation either.'

'It isn't.'

'Then what is it? Do you want me to be your enemy? Is that what gets you off?'

Harry feels stung. 'You can't tell me you don't like all the -' he waves his hand around vaguely '- hand-cuff stuff as well.'

'Oh, I do. But I don't fool myself into thinking that we're fighting.' Malfoy looks across at Harry, who doesn't know what to say to that, and he gapes a little. 'You- you actually thought we were fighting. Potter, that is beyond wrong, I-'

Harry glares, and snaps, 'No, I thought we were-' before he has to stop to wonder what he did think they were. 'I thought - Malfoy, I _did_ think it - us, sleeping together - was wrong -'

'- I knew it -'

' _But I wanted it anyway_ ,' Harry finishes. 'I thought it was wrong because I thought ... because it wasn't the same as, as Ginny, because it wasn't what everyone else seemed to want, but I, I wanted ...' He falters for a second, but grits his teeth. 'You never asked questions,' he goes on. 'You never ... you never seemed to want anything but what I wanted, and I could tell you to piss off and you would, but you'd be back, you didn't ... you didn't expect me to know what you were thinking. And you were something I could just have for myself, that no-one wrote opinion columns about, or _gossiped_ about without even knowing us. I could get angry and you'd be angry back, and it would be fair. I never had to be careful around you, or, or lie about how I was feeling.' He wraps his arms about himself, and bites his lip, waiting for a response. Daring Malfoy to throw it back in his face. And he wouldn't necessarily blame him, because Harry's sort of only just figured all this out for himself, and he almost wants to run away in the face of it as well.

Malfoy doesn't say anything for a long time, or at least, it seems like a long time, just staring, searching Harry's face for something. Eventually he takes a breath, and says, 'And now?'

'Pardon?'

'You say that's what you wanted. What do you want now?'

'I ... Is it too late? To try this again?' Harry asks, knowing the off-handed tone he's trying for isn't working. Not that it ever really did work, with Malfoy.

Malfoy tilts his head. 'That depends,' he says. 'Are you going to trust me?'

Harry opens his mouth to say of course, but that's defensive. He thinks of asking if he should, but for them that's basically bedroom talk, and that realisation gives him his answer, because if he hasn't trusted Malfoy all along, with everything they've done ... well, he should have. And it's the truth, everything he said to Malfoy. He knows he can rely on Malfoy to be stubborn, to be angry with Harry when he's stupid, to roll with the punches when Harry's vicious. To give and take with him.

And Harry supposes that that's trust, at the bottom of it. To know someone else knows your flaws enough to get inside you, to understand you, but not to break you open. Malfoy could have done a lot with this, with everything he knows and with everything he's done, _they've_ done, but he's come back to Harry instead, and the least Harry can do is tell him the truth.

'I think so,' Harry says, and swallows. 'I'll try.' Malfoy looks at him, as if maybe that's not enough. Harry knows what he has - what he _wants_ \- to do, to show Malfoy he means it, even if 'it' isn't anything like an actual assurance.

'Luna?' he says, raising his voice to be heard through the door to the kitchen. 'Can you bring Sirius out, please? I want Malfoy to meet his son.'

***

 **Nineteen Years Later**

Ron grew up around magic, but crossing the barrier to Platform Nine and Three Quarters has always had a certain something to it. Of course, as soon as he makes it through the feeling disappears under a sudden rush of _back to work_.

'Oi, Wood!' he shouts, stopping his trolley and gesticulating at a thirteen-year-old girl in the middle of pulling her wand out. 'You'd better not be thinking of casting that hex,' he says, and he still feels mildly ridiculous when she mutters something about 'sorry, Professor Weasley,' but she does stop. They do what he tells them, and sometimes they ask him for help, and sometimes they ask him for _advice_. He does the best he can.

'Weasley, it's work,' old McGonagall had said three years ago. He'd got his grades for the NEWTS he'd insisted on sitting, the oldest candidate in living memory, and after staring at them for half an hour he'd Flooed her and asked tentatively about a job. 'You have to be a parent to dozens of children that aren't yours, and you have to be fair to them. No favourites, no disliking any of them. And of course, you have to teach them as well.'

She's a bloody good Headmistress, and he hopes he's half the Transfiguration teacher she was.

A flurry of blonde hair to one side catches his eye and he turns, and grins. It's Luna and Sirius. She's saying something he's clearly heard a thousand times, to judge by his exasperated expression. Being blonde and blue-eyed, he looks a lot like Luna if you don't look too closely, don't realise the hair's a lot paler than hers, the blue eyes a little too sharp, too Malfoy. And the way his hair sticks up and refuses to be combed, that's all Harry. Ron looks around, wondering, and isn't surprised when he spots Harry standing casually by the barrier. Ron must have walked straight past him initially. He pushes his trolley over.

'Wotcher, Harry,' Ron says, leaning against the bricks. 'On duty?'

'You know how it is,' Harry says. 'The Office likes to have someone watching, just in case. There's always someone who goes and draws attention to themselves around the Muggles, or accidentally hexes someone else.'

 _Yeah,_ thinks Ron, _and there's a reason you've volunteered for it these past few years._ He can't blame him though.

'How's Malfoy?' he asks, to be civil. To this day, he's not sure exactly what to call what they have, but whatever it is, it's something that bears acknowledgement between friends, at least.

'Charming as ever,' Harry says, and smiles. 'You might see him yourself, later. Scorpius starts this year.'

And that's the other thing Ron isn't sure about - Malfoy's wife and son. As far as he's aware, Harry doesn't really interact with Malfoy's 'proper' family, and he's never said a word against them … but then again, if it did bother him, Harry probably wouldn't say.

It bothers Ron though, that Malfoy still cares enough about his stupid pureblood lineage to get himself married and pass on his name, when he'd gone on about loving Harry, when it was Harry he'd fought for and Harry who'd carried his child, even if that child could never be the heir he apparently wanted. If Harry is going to be stoic about this, then Ron will take the role of the offended best friend gladly.

This isn't the time to bring it up, though. So instead he says, 'Anytime you and him and Krum want to get thrashed again, me and George and Charlie are up for another game of three-a-side.'

'It'll be different next time,' Harry says equably. 'Anyway, is it any wonder a team of three Seekers lost a game with no Snitch involved?'

'You're all talk, Potter,' says Ron.

'Uncle Harry!'

Harry turns and gets hit amidships by a ballistic thirteen-year-old child. He grins, and hugs Sirius tight. 'I take it you're off to school?' he asks when he's managed to disentangle himself. 'Are you looking forward to it?'

'Yeah,' Sirius says. 'Can't wait!' He launches into a story about something that happened in Charms class last term, which Ron vaguely remembers getting him a week’s detention and losing Ravenclaw ten points, when there's a scuffling sound and a yell, and the dark, curly-haired eleven-year-old boy belonging to Hermione and Krum barrels up and hugs Sirius fiercely around the shoulders.

'Alexander!' Hermione says, a little too late, and comes puffing up to join Harry, Ron and Luna, trailling Krum and their two younger daughters, who look very excited to be here and are swinging on their father's hands. 'Behave!'

Harry snorts under his breath.

'I _am_ behaving,' Alexander retorts. 'D'you know who isn't? Teddy Lupin! He's -'

Harry looks puzzled, and looks around. 'What's Teddy doing here? He's not at school any more.' Teddy's mostly been raised by his grandmother - Harry's always said it was no life for a kid, being dragged around after an Auror - but it means that Harry, well … misses things. Like the epic saga of his godson and Ron's niece, and their on-again, off-again tempestuous teenage relationship, apparently.

'It's Victoire!' Alexander says, sounding scandalised.

'He's probably just snogging her behind the lockers again,' says Sirius, sounding a little too world-weary for his age. 'It's not _that_ exciting.'

Harry looks almost as shocked as Alexander sounds. 'He's _what_?'

Fortunately for Harry's sanity, and Teddy and Victoire's scant privacy, this is the moment that Malfoy and company choose to sail into view. Little Scorpius is a smaller, better-groomed and apparently better-behaved version of Sirius, at least on first appearances. His mother is brushing lint off his shoulder. Malfoy looks up, and Ron would have to be blind not to see the look that passes between him and Harry. He hopes no one else did, because that sort of look is definitely not appropriate on a crowded platform full of children. Whatever arrangement they have, it must still work, somehow.

There's a breathy whistle from the train, and a sudden commotion as everyone starts to rush to get aboard. It's usually the mothers that do this bit, and true to form, Luna, Hermione, Fleur (with a slightly dazed, happy-looking Victoire behind her) and Malfoy's wife, whatever her name is, all start shuffling their children towards the train carriages. Ron hangs back for a moment (the train won't leave without him) and watches as Sirius helps little Alexander aboard, and then reaches out a hand to Scorpius.

Seeing them next to each other, Ron thinks they could almost be brothers, and then remembers that they are. How many other people are going to think that? But then again, the details of Sirius's parentage are so far-fetched, they're probably safe from anyone actually guessing.

One day, Sirius is going to want to know who his dad is, though.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ron catches sight of Harry running a hand over his stomach, where his _other_ scar sits. He's smiling. Beside him, Krum has his arm around Hermione, and they're both smiling too, watching their son wave from the nearest window. Their younger daughter looks sad, lurking behind her father’s robe, but the elder looks mutinous, and tugs on Hermione’s arm.

‘Can’t I go too, Mum?’ she whines, and as Hermione bends down to shush her, the train sounds a final whistle, so Ron makes his own way on board and looks back at his friends. And he, too, has a smile on his face -

'Ow! Sir! She hexed me!'

' _Wood!_ '

Ron stops to deal with Melanie Wood, who gets the dubious honour of starting her third year by collecting a detention before school's started or the train has even fully left the platform, and then starts his wander down the carriages. Just ahead of him are Sirius and Alexander, looking for an empty compartment.

'What house do you think you'll be in?' Sirius asks, dragging Alexander’s trunk. His own has already been stashed in a compartment full of third years.

Alexander shrugs. 'I don't know. Mum says it doesn't matter really, because people change as they mature.'

It sounds like a direct quote from Hermione. Ron has to stifle a snort. The train rattles underfoot as they go over a set of points - the boys have to grab at a compartment door to stop themselves falling.

'She was in Gryffindor, though, your mum. My mum said so. D'you think you'll go there too? My mum was in Ravenclaw, and so am I.'

'Does it work like that?' Alexander asks.

Sirius looks like he's giving that some thought. 'No …' he says slowly. 'Mum said it's about where you want to go. And Uncle Harry said he got a choice.'

'Well, I want to be in Ravenclaw,' Alexander says, and beams up at Sirius, though he’s got sense enough, at the age of eleven, not to expound upon why, despite his adoration for his friend being clear enough to see.

Another set of points, and the train starts picking up speed, rolling round the first big curve. The boys collide with another door, which slides open, clearly not latched properly.

Ron, with the advantage of his height, can see there's only one kid in the compartment. It's Scorpius Malfoy, who must have gone on ahead to find a seat rather than waiting to wave at his parents.

‘Will this do?’ Sirius asks, dropping the trunk and narrowly missing his own foot.

'Hello!' says Alexander, sliding into a seat and grinning. 'Is anyone sitting here?'

Scorpius Malfoy looks him up and down, holds out his hand, and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Epilogue' seems like an awfully short word to describe the rest of someone's life.


End file.
